The Descent
by Harry O'Henth
Summary: The Jedi thought they knew what the Dark Side was, thought they understood its corruption. They were wrong. They tried to stop it, tried to turn back time by erasing the memories it left behind. But now a man begins to fall again, a thousand times harder than before, and the hope of the galaxy falls upon the most unlikely of shoulders.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Waking up felt strange. Unexpected. It was the deep ache, an emptiness that gnawed in his gut, a chill that would not abate; these were the things that awakened him, but it was the pain that kept him among the living. The sharp agony of his burns, his broken and cracked bones, the wrapping around his head that was tighter than a vice. He could feel his heartbeat in his temple, where the bandages were tightest. There was a medical device there, anchored to the bones of his skull, and there was a clear tube filled with drainage that laid to his side.

Even his eyes hurt, when he moved them, just to gain a sense of his surroundings. That was when the woman arrived, looking down at him with the strangest expression of concern. There was a telltale sense of wariness in that stare, as though she was uncertain of the danger he posed, but that was patently ridiculous. His current condition precluded any sort of violent interaction. He could barely twitch his fingers…

"You're awake," she observed. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit," he replied in a voice that ground like gravel.

She didn't laugh at this deadpan response. Didn't react in any way, other than to reach across him and fiddle for a moment with the machinery. And that would become a staple of their relationship, over the next several weeks. He slipped in and out of unconsciousness, speaking briefly to the woman that identified herself as Yasaya, a Jedi healer. He was on Dantooine, a world that was entirely unremarkable save for its status as host for the Jedi Enclave.

At some point, he had been informed that he was a mercenary working contracts with the Republic. Special operations division, particularly suited for guerrilla tactics. That was a fancy way of saying that he was a killer for hire, and that he worked for the Republic. Somehow, this didn't bother him as much as he suspected it should have.

Apparently, he had been sent with a team of six to handle the issue of Mandalorian scum on Dantooine, but the mission went to shit. A Jedi had found him two miles out from the Enclave among the wreckage of his swoop bike, and they'd brought him here to treat his injuries. He'd been unconscious for three weeks, according to Yasaya, but it didn't feel to him like he had been motionless for so long. If he had been, then he should have been experiencing more weakness, but the small motions that he was capable of were not inhibited by muscle strength. Only by his injuries.

The other, more startling, fact was that his memories had been irreparably damaged. He hadn't even been aware of it until they mentioned it, asked him for his name.

His name was Asan Dumat. Beyond that…there were only fragments. He remembered…parents, distantly. A blonde woman with blue eyes and a black-haired man. Their names were gone, like dust in the wind. Along with his childhood…only snippets. A brown feline…a nursery with purple walls…classes with other children in colorful classrooms with effervescent young teachers.

The gap in his memory there was startling. Essentially from his most lucid memories up until twelve months ago was blank. There were impressions of violence, like echoes that had been placed upon his soul. He knew that it had been time spent in terrible struggle…and great suffering. But the most recent memories were routine missions for the Republic, nothing horrible. Just…death, cold and unfeeling.

It wasn't until the third day that they provided him with a datapad that had access to the Enclave's network. It was then that he started catching up on the news reports; it was startling to find himself in a galaxy at war with no memory of the combatants. Every headline was the same, as far as he could tell: Dark Lord of the Sith Revan was dead. Killed by a Jedi, Bastila Shan. The new Dark Lord of the Sith, Malak, had taken control after a short period of rebellion among the Sith.

Several things stood out. Firstly, it was rather humorous to call oneself a "Dark Lord." Seriously, it wasn't that difficult to tell who was on the right side of the conflict when your leader named himself Dark Lord of yada-yada. He could have taken any other title, but instead he had chosen Dark Lord. Probably, as Asan later discovered, because he was opposed to the Jedi, and the Jedi traditionally stood for the Light. That didn't make the title any less...ostentatious.

The second thing was that Malak appeared to be worse for the Republic in every respect than his predecessor. Revan had been a peerless tactician and figurehead for the Sith, a leader that had brought the disparate cultures of the Outer Rim under his flag, who had rallied thousands of previously Republic soldiers to turn on their brethren, who had somehow constructed an armada twice the tonnage of the Republic fleets. But he had not been a desecrator, or a thoughtless murderer. Ruthless, of course. As far as Asan could tell, Revan never accepted surrender, had bombed entire cities for harboring his enemies, and was not to be satisfied with anything other than the total defeat of the Republic.

Malak was a fool in comparison. A bumbling idiot with a fleet powerful enough to overwhelm the Republic by sheer force, perhaps, but still an idiot. He was bloodthirsty, untethered, absolutely mad. Since taking control he had already utterly devastated six Republic worlds and two of his own. _His own subjects._ Asan was disgusted by the thoughtless waste of life and resources displayed by this… _pretender._ Who did he think he was helping by doing this? When he inevitably won, what would he have to show for it, other than endless rubble and empty star systems. A fleet of murderers, incensed by bloodshed, inches from rebellion? Thousands upon thousands of systems so enraged by his rape of their neighbor systems that they would explode into civil war at the slightest opportunity?

It was folly.

What was worse, however, was the Republic's response. Faced with an opponent so monstrous, a mindless murderer, they had held up the killer of Revan as a symbol of hope. This Jedi, Bastila Shan…appeared to be their last line of defense. The media praised her every success, covered up the minor defeats, and reported only on how incredible her abilities as a leader had become, how she was leading the Republic to victory against the Sith terror. It was enough to make Asan sick.

The Jedi was quite a woman. But she was young. Only a Padawan, which Asan understood was a student among Jedi, and already with such acclaim. Her abilities as a commander were praised, but she had no formal instruction. It was more likely that whatever contributions she made to the battles were minor and that the Republic was creating a figurehead for the resistance, someone that could inspire greater morale in the armies. But this was doomed to failure, the moment that she was proven to be as weak as the rest of them.

When their hero burned, the Republic would lose the war entirely.

And Asan was _working_ for these people?

For a moment he wondered how he could possibly have agreed to a contract with the Republic, given the situation. Unless three weeks was all it took for the galaxy to go to shit, he must have known that the Republic was losing the war when he contracted with them.

For that matter, what in the hells was he doing faffing about with Mandalorians on Dantooine while the Republic burned at the hands of Sith? That didn't make any sense at all.

Thoroughly disheartened, he had turned his focus away from current events and studied the Jedi. The first thing on the tablet was their Code.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

There is no death, there is the Force.

It struck him at first as nonsense. Any living sapient creature could tell you that emotions were _real,_ insofar as they were experienced in some measure by everyone. If it wasn't being literal, but instead representing a state of zen or enlightenment, then it was providing an impossible standard. There would always be emotion, no matter how much you struggled to contain them. There would always be ignorance, no matter how much you studied. There would always be passion, always be chaos, always be Death.

 _Peace is a lie…_

Asan sighed and powered off the datapad. He wanted to get up, to start training again. To recover his faculties. But he had only just been released from the tubes, and the kolto patches on his skull ached with even the slightest movement.

Still, he forced his legs to the side and sat up, gingerly, feeling the pull of his scars with the motion, but in seconds he was staring to the side, out of the window in his room. It was pitch black there, overcast and silent. The shadows seemed to pool in the window sill, impenetrable, but there was some comfort in the silence. It was a constant…unchanging.

 _He was standing, arms crossed, looking at the void. In the distance…a bright flare, green and blue, and the echo of death resounding, almost imperceptible. Then the disturbance was gone, leaving only dust in its wake, the fragmented, frozen bodies of his enemies grasped within the emptiness of space. Victory…_

"What are you doing?" Yasaya hissed, suddenly standing by the bedside. Asan would have been startled if he had been paying attention, but instead he only blinked as if he was awakening from a dream and glanced at her.

"I needed to sit up," he said.

"You aren't well enough for that," she replied. "Come, come. Lay back."

"I feel fine," Asan protested, even as he followed her gentle but firm guidance. "When will I be permitted to shave…to stand up?"

"A few more days," she brushed aside his questions. "Is the datapad inadequate?"

"There's nothing there that I want to read," Asan replied shortly, letting his head fall back and focusing on the pains in his body. Letting the feeling of them wash away his frustration, replacing it with a different kind of anger. The impotent kind that wouldn't tempt him to shout or struggle.

Yasaya was gone as quickly as she had come. Asan thought about his memories, about the waking dream that he had experienced, but was met only with a black wall. The void was in his mind, as well. It would have been comforting…almost. But he could _feel_ the holes in his memory like potholes in a road. And running into those bottomless pits was a cold, unforgiving experience. Following the trace of a memory, only to hit _nothing._

When the finally gave him a razor, Yasaya stayed in the room and talked with him, ostensibly making sure that he didn't fall. But he saw the slight flicker in her eyes, the focus she had in watching. There was fear in her…why? Like he was dangerous somehow, holding that thumb-sized little blade. As if it made him some kind of threat, when he could barely stand to walk to the mirror.

What kind of violence had he been capable of, to inspire this wariness in a Jedi of all people?

Looking into his own eyes was worse than the void. His face…it was unfamiliar. His memory was so incomplete that he spent almost three minutes just stroking his beard, turning his head.

"Everything alright?" Yasaya questioned him, and her hand ghosted over his shoulder.

"Yeah," Asan muttered, tracing the scar on the side of his head. It was too large, he should remember how he'd gotten it. It was right there at the tips of his proverbial fingers…closer than he'd ever been to remembering…

 _Dxun…a jungle._

 _Flashes of white and red light. Screaming. Stars in the night sky…then blood, hot and pulsing with his heart, pouring over his face. The visor of a Mandalorian above him…a glinting blade in the starlight. The rumble of distant thunder._

 _Hate. Anger. Frustration. Someone was screaming…_

"I'm fine," he finished, dropping his hand to turn the faucet. The water was lukewarm rather than hot, but that was good. Like jungle rain.

It was a memory that felt _real._ Something that was his own, substantiated by the scar on the side of his head. And now he knew that he'd fought in the Mandalorian Wars. That he'd been on a planet called Dxun.

Feeling better than he had in more than a week since waking, he raised the little blade and shaved the unruly beard from his face. Revealing, by inches, the unfamiliar visage of a stranger.

The scars on his face were startling. There was the long stripe that curved around his left eye, down his cheek a finger's length. And now the surgical scar on his right temple, a perfect circle with a dot in the center, still red in spite of the kolto treatments. There was a smattering of a burn on his jaw, and the side of his neck.

Curious, Asan washed his face and peeled off his hospital gown, completely ignoring the Yasaya's gasp as he looked down at himself. Bandages, of course. He had seen those. But he wanted the history that was written on his skin, the evidence of violence that was etched indelibly upon a tapestry of flesh. Bared before his eyes, years of experience and memories, now dim and forgotten, left only these indecipherable scars as proof that they had ever happened at all.

Yasaya gently pulled his gown over his shoulders. "Come on," she whispered.

"I can't remember," he told her, a well of anger surging up from somewhere within him. "I have all these scars and I…"

He bit his tongue and sat on his bed. The healer frowned at him for a moment, eyes soft, but darkly glittering. "I think you've been cooped up inside for too long," she declared. "I'll find you a robe and you can spend some time in the enclave proper. The garden might do you some good, I think."

The prospect of walking was a happy one, and Asan nodded his head with some eagerness. The next day, he spent an hour sitting in the garden, reading more about the Jedi on the datapad, wondering why it all felt vaguely familiar. Had he known all of this before, somehow?

There was another Jedi that was always nearby. A woman, human, with black hair and gray eyes like slate. At first Asan couldn't understand why she was there, since she obviously saw no point in speaking with him, but eventually he realized that she was a guard.

"Does it rankle much, being stuck here watching over me?" he asked her one day, dropping his datapad in the tall grass at his side. The Jedi started, narrowed her eyes at him.

"I am a servant of the Council. They requested that I watch over you while you are in our care," she replied.

Asan chuckled. "I've never had a Jedi watcher before, discounting Yasaya. What's your name?"

"It's Paula," she answered. "You're a mercenary."

Asan shrugged. "That's right. I'm a soldier."

"No, you're a mercenary," Paula answered, her voice cool. "Soldiers make oaths. They are trustworthy. There's a difference."

"Is that right?" Asan mused. "Who says trust is all about oaths? I find the things restrictive. There's a certain amount of freedom in choosing your master. One that is not given to soldiers."

The Jedi narrowed her eyes. "What do you have to fight for, then? Money?"

"What if I just like to fight?" Asan questioned pointedly, since he didn't have a real answer anymore. "Why do I need a good reason?"

It was that statement that drove the wedge between them, never to be removed. She looked so surprised at this pronouncement that Asan wondered just how sheltered the Jedi must really be. Regardless, she walked away from him after that, and it gave him some peace.

Beginning physical therapy was easier than Asan had feared. The Jedi were exceptional warriors, and their enclave had facilities for exercise. At first it was just walking around the place, the garden and the courtyard, sharing the occasional quiet word with the Jedi. It always seemed that there were a great deal of them here, in this peaceful place, when a war was taking place in the galaxy at large.

But it was not the Jedi's duty to wage wars, they would say. The Jedi Order keeps peace, protects the innocent, serves justice. All of these things, however, necessitate warfare when faced with the Sith. And here the Jedi remained, debating.

Asan graduated to short jogs and weight training, learning to move in his body again. He remembered things quickly, especially when it came to combat. That was one thing that the Jedi were good for: a fight. ironically, perhaps, the Order of peacekeepers were some of the best warriors that Asan could remember.

Which wasn't honestly saying much, considering his memory.

During his fifth week at the enclave, Asan was beginning to grow tired of Jedi adages, epithets, and platitudes. And getting his ass kicked in spars was only entertaining once or twice. He was getting better, but Asan sensed that there was some suspicion surrounding his arrival here, that the Jedi perhaps didn't think he was truly a friend to the Republic. And the better he performed the more he felt eyes on him, tracking his every waking moment.

Eventually, Yasaya stepped into his room while he was stepping from the refresher with a towel over his shoulders. She dropped a datapad with an official Republic seal on his desk, crossed her arms over her chest. "Finish dressing and pack your things. You've got an assignment."

"Finally," Asan drawled, stepping closer. There was a dusting of a blush on the older woman's cheeks, and he almost smirked. So, the Jedi weren't as frigid as they liked to make themselves appear. He picked up the datapad and skimmed its contents.

The Republic extended his contract for the weeks that he had been in recovery, without pay. The details of his account were outlined, as well as the location he was expected to report to and the time that he was expected to do it.

The Endar Spire departed from Kuat in four days, in the morning.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The Kuati were a strange breed. Their culture was deeply curious, loyal, and honest, but their loyalty was to their home world first and to their clan second, with other responsibilities coming after. Their planet was ringed by a mineral-rich dust belt that was perfect for orbital drydocks and shipyards, and the Republic had been using it as one of three large manufactories. Since the Mandalorian Wars, the Republic Army had not stood down for more than three weeks. This meant good business for Kuat, but it also made the shipyards a target. On the outer reaches of the Core, the system was gradually becoming more and more dangerous as the Sith advanced system to system, fighting tooth and nail for every light-year that they claimed.

The Endar Spire was a Hammerhead-class cruiser, recently refitted after suffering terrible damage in battle six months ago. The ship was hardly classified as a capital ship, designed for the escort role. It lacked a complement of smaller craft, such as fighters or bombers. Crew quarters large enough to support sixty people comfortably, a cargo-hold with enough space for a month's supplies. Four large thrusters, maneuvering jets, and a pair of hyperdrives gave it an impressive maneuverability for its size. But, the vessel sacrificed armor thickness to achieve its speed, relying instead upon the huge energy output of its engines.

Powerful shields made the Hammerhead a vessel that was capable of ramming. If its target had weakened shields or structural damage, then a Hammerhead could become a missile itself, rocketing across the distance with afterburners to crack larger capital ships in half. Often, such an operation claimed the Hammerhead as well, but it was a worthy sacrifice. Sixty lives, against thousands in the case of some larger vessels.

Regardless, it was a strange choice for a reconnaissance operation.

That had been the assignment that Asan had been given. He was to serve as a part of the Endar Spire's special forces squad of six, and the vessel itself was slated for reconnaissance along the front lines, particularly in the Mid Rim. It was dangerous territory out there, highly contested, and the sites of battle shifted by the hour. A cruiser like the Endar Spire lacked the stealth capabilities of a smaller cutter, had mediocre sensor strength, and it wasn't suitable for multi-role combat situations like the Kuati Dagger-cruiser.

In short, it was a stupid ship. Asan wasn't really sure what he was doing there, but as he trudged up the boarding ramp, shook hands with his immediate superior, and felt the glares of the enlisted Republic men on his back as he unpacked his bag, he realized that there wasn't anywhere else to go. He couldn't remember having a house or an apartment. Didn't know any friends or family.

All he had was this contract with the Republic. And the Jedi.

He was approached by one of them shortly after they departed from Kuat. She was not a typical Jedi in dress. Asan wagered that she wasn't a typical Jedi in personality, either, save for one thing: the self-righteousness. She was beautiful—nay, she was gorgeous. Flawless. Graceful. Not a strand of hair was out of place. She could have been wearing a burlap sack and still would have been fit for angels. She was so pretty that it irked, there was a frustration in it, a sense of the _unreal._ Looking at her made him want to see just how ugly she could become.

He wondered what it would be like to watch her unravel in his hands, and he winced at the almost foreign thought. It was instinctual and malicious, something that the mercenary hadn't found within himself up to that point. But when it reared its head that first time, it settled seamlessly into place.

"Asan?" She asked, holding out a hand. He took it lightly, squeezed somewhat more firmly than necessary, flashed his teeth in a grimace. She ignored all this and continued as if he didn't exist. "I'm Bastila Shan, the commander of this vessel."

And? Asan blinked at this woman, nodded slowly. He mused, "You are younger than I imagined."

And she was. There wasn't a shred of age about her, either in wisdom or appearance. For a moment, he checked himself at this thought, cautioned that he didn't really know her at all and shouldn't be judging her so swiftly, but the feeling didn't abate. Rationality, it seemed, didn't stand well against intuition.

She blinked, as though surprised, and his smile widened. He was sure she had not encountered very many people who dared to be rude. For one, she was a Jedi, and that garnered some respect. But regardless of that, she was also a woman and a stunning one. A creature made unapproachable by nature of her beauty, and one that demanded a certain regard from all but her closest friends.

"Well, I'm not sure what you've heard about me, but I am who I am," she replied, stiffly. "I thought to tell you that I've requested your services because of your particular specialization. I saw what you were capable of and I am impressed. I could use a man like you in my crew."

The first thought that sprung to mind was this: who in their right mind would give this slip of a girl operational command of a warship? The second was that Asan couldn't remember ever meeting this woman before in his life, which was quite a surprise considering the facts. He gave her this: she was certainly unforgettable.

"I suppose that I'm honored," he drawled, wondering how she was familiar with his skills.

Something was stinky about the whole situation, but it was only when Asan discovered that there were six other Jedi knights on board that he really started to think.

They'd been in transit for six days. During that time, Asan had yet to meet another member of the special forces team, other than his commanding officer, who had only spoken to him once. The conversation had consisted of the enlisted officer looking at Asan like he was something that had been scraped off the bottom of someone's boot, a terse introduction, and an about face.

In short, the Spire wasn't the most welcoming atmosphere.

Paula was there. A familiar face, even one that had only spoken to him once before, was welcome, and he'd waved across the hall to the Jedi, spotting a flash of recognition in her eyes, but she'd walked right by him like he didn't even exist.

Now, if Bastila was really as important as they said, then what was she doing on a recon mission in the Mid-Rim? Shouldn't the prodigious commander be leading fleets at Serroco? It didn't make sense.

There wasn't any time to figure it out, either. Asan was jostled awake during his night-shift when the Spire lurched beneath his feet in a motion that he recognized immediately as the impact of a turbolaser on the shields. Rolling off his bunk, he kicked open his footlocker and withdrew the battered old rifle that was, apparently, a part of his equipment. The thing looked older than dirt, but it hummed to life at his urging, and as he hauled out his combat suit, the door behind him snapped open and Asan aimed down the sights.

He only barely saw the red-orange uniform before pulling the trigger. Dropping his weapon and releasing a small breath, he shook his head. "What's the situation?"

"Sith boarding party," the blond man answered him. "I'm Trask Ulgo, your bunk-mate. We have to get moving, to the bridge."

"Are you special forces?" Asan asked, equipping himself in less than sixty-seconds. He didn't remember the procedures clearly, only following what felt instinctual. But it was soon apparent that his body remembered rhythms that his mind had forgotten. His palm rested on the hilt of the sword at his side as he stepped up to the Republic soldier.

"No," Trask replied, raising an eyebrow curiously. "I'm just an ensign. Now let's get moving, I can override the emergency lockdown on these doors."

Asan gestured blandly and the man rushed down the corridor. The sounds of blaster fire filtered through the thick durasteel doors, and Trask held up a hand as he keyed in a short code and hefted his rifle. The standard issue Republic carbine looked worse than the battered old thing he was carrying.

When the door opened, Asan saw a republic soldier take three disruptor rounds to the chest. His armor blistered and his flesh blasted out from the sides of the injury in a fine red dust. Trask swung wide, firing at the source, and the mercenary hugged the wall, aiming down sights, breathing once, and firing twice. Two bodies hit the deck, armored in their ridiculous gold.

"Like paper," he scoffed, ducking slightly as he stepped down the corridor, leaving Ulgo to check the vitals of his comrade.

"He's dead," the man called.

 _Death is a part of war._

"Got to move," Asan called back, swinging the strap of his rifle over a shoulder and drawing his sword. He remembered the next several rooms were small, filled with crates and footlockers. The Sith were wearing personal energy shields, although it was apparent that some of them were not activated, for one reason or another.

A shot of kolto on the belt of a fallen Sith caught Asan's eye. He snagged it as he passed, posting up beside the next door. "Open it," he whispered. "There'll be more of them in the next room. They'll be waiting."

Trask nodded. When the door twitched, Asan dived forward, barely missing the heavy durasteel blast-proof slab as he tucked himself into a roll and slammed into the crates. Blaster bolts hissed inches above his head. He turned on his heel, coming around the crate from the left and rising with a clean diagonal cut.

A Sith had been kneeling behind the partial cover provided by the crates. The sword caught him under the arm and lifted him to a standing position, biting into his chest before catching on the armor that he was wearing. Three blaster shots struck his back, splattering over the blue energy shield he wore. Asan pushed the man off his blade, into his friend, and ducked a desperate spray from the other Sith. Trask peeked and opened fire, catching the man in the open.

The Sith who was still standing had drawn a vibrosword, which was better quality than Asan's old-fashioned length of cold steel. It didn't help him. He rushed forward, and Asan deflected the wild swing directly into a footlocker, where the vibrosword bit six inches through the plastisteel. Placing his foot on the blade, Asan thrust the point of his own sword through the breastplate with a deft extension of his arm, turning his shoulder and dropping the corpse to the floor. His sword glistened crimson in the sterile lights of the cruiser.

Stepping over the corpse, Asan killed the wounded soldier and proceeded to the next door, Trask following a second later, after firing a bolt through each visor on the ground, just to make sure. The kid's hands were shaking, just so, but the mercenary knew that they'd steady up when real combat started. He was the same way, sometimes. Jittery in the moments before, but cool as ice in the heat.

The next door led to the central corridor of the cruiser. One hall to the bridge, the other to engineering. Two diverging paths to dormitories. There was a full squad of Sith soldiers engaged in a firefight across the open hallway with a group of engineers and a handful of officers. Trask moved as if he was going to dive into the fray, but Asan grabbed his arm and threw him back just as a fragmentation grenade exploded in the corridor.

The pressure in the cabin spiked painfully and the shockwave tore eight men to shreds before their eyes. The others were caught by the cloud of shrapnel or the heat. What remained was carnage, and a deathtrap of sparking electrical conduits. The bulkhead was scorched, but intact—thank the Force.

"Damn fools," Asan spat, hauling the ensign to his feet. "You good?"

"Yeah," the blond hissed thorugh gritted teeth. He looked a bit green, surveying the carnage.

Turning towards the bridge, Asan heard an odd humming sound. There was a sort of clashing hiss and crackle, like static noise, and something at the back of his head helpfully supplied the source.

 _Lightsaber. Two of them. A duel._

Trask opened the door and revealed a tall, pale man with a crimson lightsaber stalking towards Paula, the black-haired Jedi Knight.

"That's a Dark Jedi!" Trask hissed, putting a hand on Asan's arm when the mercenary steped forward. "This fight's beyond the both of us."

"His back is turned!" Asan replied, slinging his rifle around. He took aim and fired.

Impossibly quick, the red lightsaber arced over the pale man's shoulder and deflected the shots into the wall. The Dark Jedi turned with his blade a moment later and leaped, his dark robe flowing behind him like a wing.

"Shit!" Trask swore, fumbling for his carbine. Asan's hand dropped to his sword, however, and he traced the Dark Jedi's probable path in an instant, dropping his gun and drawing the sword in a cut. The Dark Jedi flew directly into the path of the attack; his lightsaber glanced off the sword moments before the steel buried itself in his chest.

The superheated laser blade skimmed Asan's shoulder as the Sith stumbled through his leap, taking them both to the ground. The mercenary rolled to the side, holding the pale man's wrist as they hit the deck, rearing up over the mortally wounded Jedi and meeting his bright yellow eyes.

"My Lord?" the man wheezed. His hand opened and the lightsaber rolled across the deck, away from them.

Asan released his mangled sword, which had been bent from the heat exposure and the force of their impact. He took hold of the Dark Jedi's skull and bashed it against the deck twice, feeling bones cracking. Then he staggered away, releasing an explosive sigh as he raised a shaking hand to his shoulder.

"Son of a bitch," Trask breathed, looking at the dead man with awe and disgust.

Asan, however, was stooping to take the lightsaber. Paula was upon them a moment later. "We have to evacuate the ship," she asserted. "The bridge was lost three minutes ago. The Spire will self-destruct in two."

He was staring down at the weapon in his hand, barely aware of her command. It was a simple black cylinder, with a small thumb switch on the side. The emitter was gold, and it glinted as he turned it over in his hands. A lightsaber…

It felt right. More familiar than the rifle, at the very least, and even more than the sword that he'd been using so well. It was like he had spent most of his life holding a weapon like the one in his hand but had only forgotten. Maybe he _had._

That poisonous thought cemented itself in his mind in moments. It would never fade.

"Mercenary," Paula barked. "Give me the lightsaber."

He looked up, narrowing his eyes. Why should he give it up, when memories were gnawing at the edge of his mind? "It was my kill," he replied, tightening his hold on the weapon.

"That is no ordinary weapon, nor is it a trophy to be claimed by one such as _you_ ," the Jedi replied. They didn't have time to argue, and there was a glint in her eyes that told him she was not going to give up this argument so easily. Asan tossed the weapon carelessly and drew his rifle, shouldering past her.

He came to a sudden halt when the electrical conduits exploded a single step ahead. If he'd kept moving, as he had fully intended to, then he might have been fried. But something had brought him still…something had warned him.

The bridge was a tomb. No one was alive inside, but the scene spoke for itself. The windows were blown out, corpses strewn in pieces over the consoles and the floor. Someone had blown a grenade inside, triggering the emergency blast-proof slats to fall over the transparisteel windows, but the explosion had killed everyone. And judging from the position of the Republic soldier whose top half had been brutally torn off, it was apparent that it had been the sacrifice of an officer.

"There's another Dark Jedi ahead," Paula whispered, looking pale.

"Give me back that lightsaber," Asan replied, pushing up to the door. "I can distract him. You take him out."

Paula shook her head. "He's stronger…I can feel it."

There was a chill in the air…but that might have been the cold vacuum of space seeping through the poorly insulated emergency slats. "We don't have a choice. Sixty seconds."

Paula opened the door. Purple shocks of lightning exploded from the other room the instant it was visible, catching Asan and Trask at the fringes, but focused on Paula. Her lightsaber burst to life an instant too late, and she screamed as a single second of concentrated power hit her, burned across her body from head to foot, and threw her three steps back. The rest curled around her lightsaber as a robed figure swept through the open door, holding a malevolently glowing red lightsaber in his left hand.

Asan's eyes were wide as he witnessed the dark sorcery of this specter, and he didn't dare open fire. He waited a beat, as Paula lunged forward, engaging the Sith's lightsaber, and that was when he pulled the trigger. In fully automatic, his blaster spewed death, but the Sith whirled to the side, ducking a swipe by the Jedi and avoiding the blaster fire. Three of the shots struck Trask, who was laying over a console in spasms from the lightning. Asan didn't see if the wounds were serious, rolling away from another blast of the Force lightning.

Laying on his back, Asan saw Paula moving in a blur, faster than his eyes could track. Lightsabers slithered against each other, sloughing sparks against the terminals on either side. Heaving himself up, Asan lurched forward, following as the combat bled back to the larger room. The war room was furnished only with a large round table in the center, and a holocommunications suite at the back end. There was room enough to maneuver here, and it gave the Dark Jedi time.

Asan moved to the other side of the table, tense. A pause in the melee gave him a clear view of Paula, and he saw desperation in her eyes. Fatigue.

The Dark Jedi saw him clearly in the light. He hesitated.

"Asan!"

A glint of silver. The mercenary reached out as the corrupted yellow eyes of the Dark Jedi narrowed, turned to the Jedi. He was moving before he was conscious of it, catching the weapon and igniting it as he lunged over the table. Paula was turning to block, too slow. The crimson blade of the Dark Jedi impaled her chest, cutting sideways as the man desperately staggered back, away from Asan's instinctual gambit.

The pilfered lightsaber pierced the Dark Jedi under the collarbone as Asan's legs hit the table. It slid directly forward and to the side, decapitating the man as he turned. With a final flourish of robes, he collapsed. The mercenary followed through with his lunge, deactivated his weapon, and knelt beside the Jedi.

She was dead. Glancing back, he saw that Trask was pulling himself off the console, still shaking.

"Move!" the ensign bellowed. Asan dropped, and another lightsaber hissed through the space where his head had been. At his back, yet another Dark Jedi was pressing forward.

"A pity," a cool voice whispered. "My master would have rewarded me greatly for your death…"

Trask barreled over the jumble of bodies and the prone mercenary with a scream. The lightsaber thrummed low and squealed as it came into contact with armor and flesh. Asan surged up, watching as Trask carried the Dark Jedi back through the doorway to the medical bay with his dying momentum. Seizing the moment, the mercenary ducked through the door to the escape pods and sealed it behind him, melting the control panel with the lightsaber.

At his belt, a communicator pinged. "This is Carth Onasi. I'm tracking your progress by the Spire's life support systems. I can delay the self-destruct until you reach the escape pods. Do you copy?"

"I copy," Asan replied, quietly. He had to move, before that Dark Jedi cut his way through the blast door…

It turned out that there was only a single picket between the bridge and the escape pods. He wasn't even looking when the mercenary cut him down with the red lightsaber, feeling a surge of savage satisfaction as the body hit the ground in two parts. He could see now why the Jedi were so protective of their weapons…if everyone knew how much fun they were, then lightsabers would have gone mainstream thousands of years ago…

Carth was standing by a computer console with the escape pods when Asan stepped through the door, but the moment he was there, a blaster was in his face. "Who are you?" Carth barked.

"Asan Dumat, mercenary," was the sharp reply. "Is this the best time for this? There's a Dark Jedi bearing down on us, he'll have cut through that door…"

"We've got time," Carth cut him off. "Someone sold us out, Dumat. You're the only mercenary on this ship. We don't have special forces on board, and that was what you were supposedly on board the Spire to provide. Who are you working for?"

"I have a contract with the Republic," Asan insisted, raising his hand. "I…I didn't know that there weren't any other special forces on board…"

"Liar!" Carth hissed, stepping forward. The barrel of the blaster dug into Asan's chest. "What'd it take to sell us out, huh? A thousand credits? I bet you sold your soul real cheap, isn't that right, Dumat?"

Asan brought his hand down, knocking the blaster to the side as Carth pulled the trigger. The lightsaber hilt in his hand struck the Captain in the temple and knocked him cold. The mercenary caught the man before he hit the deck, reaching over him to key in the self-destruct. Then he hauled both of them to the escape pod, even as Carth's disorientation diminished and he began to kick.

"We don't have time for this!" Asan yelled, throwing the man bodily into the hatch of the only remaining pod. Stepping inside himself, the mercenary slapped the release before he hauled the captain up by his flight jacket and slammed him into the harness. "Strap yourself in, dammit."

The older man breathed through clenched teeth and caught Asan by the collar of his armor as he pulled back. "That was my favorite gun," he deadpanned, staring the mercenary in the eyes.

Asan burst into laughter. "You're off the chain, aren't you?" he exclaimed, brushing Onasi off and strapping himself in. Through the tiny viewport, he could see the planet turning below, growing larger. And behind, the Spire burst into green and white flames, as gorgeous as a star.

There were tears in the Republic officer's eyes, but he'd never admit to it later. Instead, he glared across at the mercenary and shook his head. "Damn you," he breathed. "Damn you to hell."

"It wasn't me," Asan insisted. "I swear it. You have my word."

"Such as it is," Carth snorted. "The word of a mercenary…"

They hit atmosphere a moment later and the pod began to shake. The damn thing was damaged, its aerodynamic flaps had only engaged on one side…

"This is going to hurt," Asan groaned, moments before they hit the ramparts of the upper city. The world spun as the pod bounced and rolled, skidding at speeds over twenty meters per second before slamming into a retention barrier. His head snapped against the harness once, and a buckle loosened. The second impact threw both of the pod's occupants against their restraints hard enough to crack bones and cause whiplash, but Asan got the worst of it as he rebounded, cracking his head a second time against the seat back.

He slumped unconscious in his harness and Carth, dizzy and looking around the interior of the pod, could only mumble. "Dammit."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 _Standing on a bridge, watching blossoms of fire in the void._

 _Feeling a chill on the back of his neck…a warning._

 _Turning, he sees a woman, young, vibrant, powerful. Determined._

 _She's everything that he had once been. A product of his teaching._

 _She's holding a lightsaber, yellow blade burning like fire. Aimed at his heart._

 _He doesn't want to fight her. He doesn't want to fight any of them. They had been his brethren once._

 _He wants them to understand. They're threatening his life…_

 _A lightsaber in his hand…the Dark crawling beneath his skin, burning in his hidden eyes._

 _It is…inevitable. Control…slipping. A beast rising within. The Force screams._

 _Suddenly he turns, looking at the stars, at the streak of blazing light that encompasses his sight._

 _It's…beautiful._

 _The world is bucking, turning. Suddenly noiseless, vision fading. He is at peace._

Asan opened his eyes with a gasp, half-expecting the icy vacuum of space to claw at his throat. Turning on his side, he coughs and opens his eyes, feeling a throbbing pain in his neck and the back of his head. The floor beneath his hands and knees is…metallic, filthy. Unpolished.

"You good?" a voice broke through his disorientation. Sitting up, he hauled himself up and swayed on his feet. He recognized the man sitting at the table…the voice. Carth Onasi.

He slowly shook his head, sinking back to sit. "I don't know. Didn't expect to wake up…"

He wasn't only talking about the crash. That dream…it hadn't felt like imagination. Like something that his mind was conjuring up. It felt like a fragment of the truth, a fraction of a larger picture. The taste of it, it burned in his mouth, whet his appetite like nothing else ever had.

Before that moment, he hadn't really considered his past a matter of importance. It was forgotten, after all…but the glimpse that he had been given painted a tragic image, and he wasn't going to be satisfied living with the void in his head any longer.

"What, you think I'm hard enough to kill a man under my command while he's sleeping?" Carth drawled, turning the blaster that was sitting on the table in front of him with a finger. Asan glanced at the other man closer, saw the bags under his eyes, the shadows in his cheeks. His shoulders were slightly hunched, and his face was unshaven, rough.

"Looked that way on the Spire," Asan murmured, drawing the chair away from the table as he stood up, sitting across from the captain. "Sorry about hitting you, by the way. We were out of time."

"I get it," Onasi whispered. "I shouldn't have lost control like that, I know it. There's a mission to complete. I don't get the luxury of going down with the ship."

"It's not all its cracked up to be," Asan muttered, thinking about his dream. That woman…it was Bastila. "Where did the other pods come down?"

"Does it matter?" Carth sighed. "This planet is under a Sith blockade. Martial law. They've got patrols on the streets. It's been twenty-three hours since we touched down. We're on the opposite side of this city block from the crash site."

"You carried me?"

Carth nodded slowly, dark eyes glittering.

"Anybody see you?" Asan leaned forward.

"A few of the aliens helped me find this place," was the reply. "The Sith don't tend to treat them very well. They won't turn us in."

"You don't know that," Asan replied. "We'll have to move quickly, find another hideout. Where did the other pods touch down?"

"The last message I sent over the Spire's frequencies pinged off of six communicators. That means we have roughly twenty survivors. My orders were to avoid the Sith and to maintain radio silence. With the loss of the Republic military base, they'll have all of our encryptions, and our slicer went up in flames in orbit so we can't receive the next round of the rolling encryption," Carth explained. "Anyway, three of the frequencies were on Taris' surface. Three from the upper ramparts, like our pod."

Asan quirked an eyebrow. "You didn't try to meet with the others that hit the Upper City?"

"Miles away," Carth waved his hand. "The Sith were touching down fifteen minutes after the pods. It took them eight hours after that to completely pacify the Republic garrison on the planet. Six hours later checkpoints at all major foot traffic lanes and patrols in apartments."

The mercenary scratched his nose with a snort. "How long was I out?"

"Two days," was the deadpan response. "They haven't come across us yet, so I think you're being paranoid."

"We should move to the lower city," Asan insisted a moment later as his headache intensified under Carth's blithe stare. "Denser population, lawlessness, and a higher proportion of illegal squatters will make us less conspicuous. We'd be closer to the planet's surface, closer to the downed pods."

The captain shrugged a moment later. "All good points. How do we get down there?"

"You know the locations of the checkpoints?" Asan asked.

"Yes," Carth answered, leaning on the table. "We can't punch through them with just the two of us. My armor will stand out like a sore thumb, and between us we have a lightsaber, a vibrosword, and a blaster pistol. And some frag grenades."

"They're looking for a Jedi. If we light up that torch, they'll have a battalion on us in an hour," Asan mused, resting his chin on his fists. "It would be best to pose as a Sith patrol, but we don't have the numbers. Are they hiring mercs?"

"Not on Taris while it's under quarantine," Carth replied dully. "I thought of that, seeing as it's your profession."

Asan sighed and rubbed at his temples for a moment, contemplating increasingly daring and violent gambits, each less likely to succeed than the last. Until his mind settled, at last, on their armament. "You said that we have frag grenades?"

* * *

"I'm in position," Carth's voice echoed softly in the mercenary's ears. "Are we really doing this?"

"Too late to back out now," Asan replied quietly. "Wait for the fireworks to start."

With that, he adjusted the sword at his belt and walked into the dimly lit streets. To any outside observer, he looked just like a spacer stranded on a foreign world, with no identifying marks upon his clothing. The dark jacket he wore had a hood, which he drew as he reached the streetlights of the Upper City, obscuring his face. The Sith patrols in the Upper City were due in thirty seconds, so he hastened his step, slipping into the overpass to the western part of the district just as a patrol meandered into the open street.

The previous patrol would have turned back already, bound to meet at the fountain ahead of him. A pack of three grenades was fastened to the underside of the fountain, set to a remote trigger, which Asan palmed as he walked, counting the seconds and watching.

The patrol of six reached the fountain and turned, catching sight of his shadowy figure an instant before he pulled the detonator. The explosion that rippled across the catwalks of the Upper City shattered windows a hundred yards away, tearing a large gash in the durasteel flooring and ripping the Sith soldiers to meaty pieces adorned in gleaming battle armor. Asan rushed into the clearing smoke, swept up a scorched rifle, and pivoted on his heel, opining fire down the bridge to the east.

The patrol behind him was caught dead to rights in the center of the open passage, with no cover and a hundred yards to run. Asan gunned them down efficiently until there was no movement in the night, ducking his head as another distant explosion shook the city. Then he ran, cradling the rifle to his chest and breathing in short bursts as his feet pounded across the city.

Sith reaction times were an unknown, but he had allowed four minutes of relative peace to reach the Lower City access lift which was a mile away. Carth, whose attack had began closer to their intended target, would likely have stiffer resistance in his journey; Asan was expected to have cleared the checkpoint by the time the captain arrived, likely being pursued by the bulk of the Sith rapid response group.

Asan reached the checkpoint and found it on high alert. Ten soldiers, hunkered down behind temporary barricades, watching every approach. They saw him coming as he lobbed his final grenade over the top, already primed, firing his stolen rifle as he barreled forward in a reckless charge. They ducked, avoiding his fire and failing to halt his advance. Then the grenade exploded, knocking half the barricades flat and throwing five of them into the air. As they clattered heavily to the deck, Asan threw his rifle aside and drew his sword, vaulting the smoldering barricade and driving the point of his blade through the back of a kneeling soldier who had been covering his eyes against the explosion.

The mercenary ducked as the others opened fire, hauling up the dying man as he forced himself forward. The mortally wounded man died in Asan's arms as his comrade's first volley seared into his back before they could pull their fire, drawing swords even as the mercenary dropped the corpse and lunged.

What followed was more of a scrap than a proper melee. The Sith attempted to swarm their hooded attacker, but Asan pressed close, using his sword like a bludgeon, one hand on the back of the blade and the other on the hilt. He caught the arms of the nearest soldier and put his shoulder against the shining gold breastplate, turning him into the wild blows of his fellows. As he shouted in pain, Asan stepped back and delivered a wicked blow to the helm with backhand swing of his Sith war sword. The helmet peeled apart like butter before the expertly angled blade edge, and bright red blood spurted into the night, colored black in the dim light.

He kicked the dying man back, entangling his fellows, and jumped into their midst, moving like a shadow between them. He cracked the hilt of his sword into the chest of one, levered him into his comrade, thrust his blade through the third, and turned in time to avoid a final counter swing before he trapped the soldier's vibrosword against the deck with his boot and cracked his visor with the pommel of his own.

Blaster shots zipped past him, striking a wounded Sith whose arm had been blasted clean off at the shoulder that had risen up at Asan's back to pierce him with a shattered weapon. Dumat barely batted an eye, falling seamlessly into combat with the support of Carth, who arrived from the shadows with a pack of Sith dogs at his heels.

He thrust down, through the breastplate of the stumbling soldier, and left it there, scooping up a blaster and turning the barricades against the approaching soldiers.

"Frag out!" Carth bellowed, ducking down and covering his ears. Dumat opened his mouth and ducked his head as well. As the explosion rattled the deck around them, he hit the turbolift call and laid suppressing fire down the open rampart.

Carth was dressed similarly to the mercenary, face covered and in civilian clothing, wielding stolen weapons. Every one of his motions was a careful extension of power, well-practiced. The scrambling Sith soldiers withered under the hail of fire, scrambling for cover that was just nonexistent on the approach. It had been made intentionally so that the checkpoint was unassailable from either direction, but the Sith had not expected to assault their own position, even one ravaged by a grenade.

As they gathered their wits, however, they would bring up their own explosive ordinance.

The lift doors opened and Asan slipped inside, covering Carth's scrambling retreat even as the Sith surged forward, twelve of them at once. The captain dove through the doors, low enough that he was covered by the barricades.

"Go, go, go, go!" he screamed.

The lift doors hissed shut and their stomachs lurched as it dropped away, to safety. Asan lowered his weapon and released a breath that he had been holding, feeling his heart racing against his ribcage, slowing almost at once now that combat had abated.

He glanced down at Carth, saw the man gasping for breath, one hand over his chest, eyes closed. The Republic officer opened his eyes and laughed. "Kriffing hells," he breathed. "That hurt."

"You hit?" Asan knelt, scanning the other man's body. He threw back his hood and ran his trembling hand through his hair.

Carth's hand came away from his chest, painted scarlet.

"Damn."


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Carth Onasi had been injured before. Most soldiers had been, at some point, put face to face with death in its most visceral forms: loss of limbs, gaping wounds, shattered bones, but Carth had seen worse than most. Not personally, but in the men that had served with him. And in his enemies. The Mandalorian Wars had been hell, of course, but there was nothing like the slaughter that the Sith could unleash if they were given the opportunity. Still, in all of the times that mortality had come knocking in his life, Carth had always been assured at least in some part by the men that stood around him, serving with fellow soldiers, pilots, and medics in the Republic.

He had never imagined that this would be how he died. On a backwater planet, sure, but never behind enemy lines without anyone other than a mercenary to watch his back, bleeding from a single wound in his chest. That kind of shot would kill him slowly, over twelve hours or so. There wasn't going to be any glory, no pale consolation to ease the pain. He'd failed in his mission. Failed his crew. Failed Bastila. Failed the Republic. Failed his family.

Asan was practically carrying him, staggering through the startlingly dilapidated Lower City of Taris, illuminated mostly by sparking conduits of poorly maintained streetlights. An apartment complex whose sign had long since been scorched blank passed overhead, and Carth found himself staring up at a ceiling that was spotted with rusted panels and nude wiring. He didn't want to imagine what the floor beneath him looked like.

"Look at me," Asan whispered, and Carth glanced at the other man, who loomed above him with the dark glittering in his eyes. There was something distinctly unsettling about the man, always had been. It was originally what had made Carth so suspicious of him, but circumstances had conspired such that he had no choice but to rely upon him.

He just…didn't move like a human, it was too smooth, too swift. His eyes didn't have the glitter of life in them, but a lurking shadow. And the way that he fought…it was brutal in an unfeeling way, fueled not by rage or fear or anything at all besides the joy of violence itself. He was unlike anything that Carth had encountered in his long life as a soldier. Not even the Dark Jedi that Carth had seen inspired such a cold chill.

"Hey," Asan hissed, tapping his gloved hand against Carth's face to get his attention. "It isn't bad. It's not lethal."

"You're lying," Carth wheezed, wincing as he sat up. Asan pulled him to a sitting position and leaned him against an old, rusty footlocker. "Wasn't wearing armor, so it's bad. Lung collapsing, blood oozing in my chest. Dead in twelve hours. Maybe less; seen it before."

Asan's features remained impassive. "If left untreated," he finally conceded with a dip of his head.

Carth had the energy to scoff. "What… _you_ goin' to patch me up? Find an unattended kolto tank while I wasn't looking?"

The mercenary was placing Carth's discarded weapon into his arms. "Shoot anyone coming through that door that doesn't first declare that Jedi are a bunch of sanctimonious pricks."

Carth snorted. "Where…?"

"I'm going to find us some supplies," Asan explained. He pulled his cloth jacket over his head and pressed it down on Carth's wound. The captain ground his teeth and groaned, but raised an arm to hold up the pressure. "Don't let up on that. And if I come back and you've blown your brains out with that gun, I'll kill you myself."

Carth chuckled darkly, but he nodded. He'd seen weaker men do such things in the throes of their dying pain. Asan stood up, and from his seated position Carth realized just how big the mercenary seemed. He walked out of the apartment and Carth breathed shakily, adjusting his arm on the cloth and feeling his thready heartbeat in his temples. He didn't know how long he laid there, staring at the ceiling, growing colder with every moment that passed. He started coughing blood and knew that it must have been several hours.

He was about to close his eyes, sleeping for what he knew would be the last time, when a voice called out, "Jedi are sanctimonious pricks!"

Then the apartment door opened and Asan burst through, tossing a satchel to the ground, followed by three pairs of blood-splattered combat armor, four vibroswords, two blaster rifles, and a tattered cloth shirt. Carth blinked and realized that the mercenary was bare-chested, but bandages wrapped his chest and upper right arm.

"Carth," the man called, hauling the satchel forward and tearing it open. His face hovered in view, vaguely surprised, "Hey, you're awake. Alive."

"Yeah," Carth rasped, feeling a chill seeping into his fingers and toes. "What'd you expect?"

There wasn't an answer to that, but the cool darkness in the mercenary's eyes spoke plainly enough. Asan pulled the bloody jacket away with Carth's arm and pursed his lips at the wound. "Lay back," he ordered brusquely.

"Do you…know what you're doing?" Carth hissed as he scooted forward with lethargic motions. He turned his head and coughed up a glob of dark, metallic-tasting blood, wiping his mouth with disgust.

"Yes," Asan replied, looking uncertain. Carth snorted, then howled as the mercenary peeled his shirt away from the wound. The burnt, tattered cloth had been seared to his skin, now torn away in a moment. Gasping, Carth glared up at the other man, but Asan had turned away to his pack.

Carth recognized the contents as a standard medical pack. Or rather several of them gutted and thrown together, with various additions that he couldn't be bothered to care about. A large syringe with a particularly large needle attached to it was driven into his chest, but he didn't have a chance to shout before soothing kolto was easing his pain. Carth sighed and let his head fall back, not particularly anxious to watch as Asan treated his wound.

He started with the site of the blaster shot, cutting away scorched flesh with surgical scissors and applying kolto generously to the burn. He didn't speak at all during this process, but when he had finished and had applied adhesive bandages over the site, he leaned forward so that Carth could see his face. "I have to drain the blood in your chest," he said.

Carth sighed. "Yeah," he grunted, familiar with the general process for this kind of injury. Typically, this was not the kind of thing you handled in the field, but they didn't have many options at the moment. It wasn't like they could just call up a med-evac from the Sith base.

"Try not to move."

With that, the man applied a numbing solution and cut between the ribs on Carth's side, into the pleural cavity, inserting a tube. It was of a larger diameter, generally used as a breathing tube, and it immediately filled with the blood that had been gradually drowning the wounded man. Moving up, Asan made another incision and placed a plastic slip across it, fastening with adhesive to form a makeshift seal. As Carth breathed in, the plastic slip would press down, but when he exhaled it would allow any air that escaped the damaged lung out of the chest.

Asan found a small container and water-sealed the drainage tube before he assessed Carth's condition again. The man was pale and sweating, breathing hard, and his eyes were pinched shut. There was blood around his lips from where he'd bit down. While he wasn't paying attention Asan applied a second kolto shot, one that was designed for internal injuries of this kind. The solution inside would help the lung recover from the damage it had suffered from the blaster shot and reduce harmful scarring.

Finished, Asan gently pulled Carth to a seated position and slumped beside him. They sat in silence for a long time, as Carth gradually felt his condition improving. He still coughed blood occasionally, still felt cold, but he could breath easier. And looking down, there was no longer a crater in his chest where the bolt had struck him.

"I brought you some armor," Asan murmured into the pensive silence.

Carth chuckled and winced. "Yeah," he scoffed. "Remind me not to get shot."

"Don't get shot," Asan drawled.

"What happened to you, anyway?"

"Killed a few guys, took their stuff," Asan shrugged. "Their friends took exception to that. Killed them too."

"What?" Carth snorted in surprise, turning his head and breathing harshly as pain washed over him. He saw Asan's darkly glittering eyes and knew that the mercenary wasn't lying. "Who were they?"

"I don't know for sure. Gangers of some kind. Probably criminals," Asan replied flippantly. "Saved your ass, didn't it?"

Carth pursed his lips, slightly sick at the thought that the man might have murdered innocents to obtain the supplies that had saved him. "Yeah. Thanks for that."

"I'm contractually obliged to pull your ass from the fire, I think," Asan deadpanned, looking away. "I can see you're feeling guilty already. Don't. They were scum. Their possessions will serve a higher purpose now. We needed weapons, armor, and medicine. We have it. Now we can proceed."

"I don't think I will be going anywhere fast," Carth mused, looking down at his blood-caked chest and bandages, and the tube that was draining into the clear canister by his thigh.

"Give it a day or two. The shot damaged a few ribs, that'll take longer, but hopefully you can move around well enough after a bit. I can do some scouting around," Asan shrugged. "We'll get that tube out and give you another hit of kolto in twenty-four. You'll be up a day after that. Not ideal, but serviceable, as long as you can handle the pain."

"Why are you doing this?" Carth asked suddenly, adjusting his legs and rubbing his knees. "I couldn't have forced you to help me; I've seen you fight. And you're a mercenary, you don't have any loyalty to the Republic."

Asan blinked and looked away for a moment, unreadable. When he spoke, his voice was unchanged, but Carth could somehow tell that this was something that he hadn't spoken of before. "I was, supposedly, injured in combat during my contract with the Republic. I woke up on Dantooine in a Jedi enclave. Their healers had attended to me while I was there. I have lingering amnesia from head injuries. Does anything sound strange about that to you?"

"The Jedi don't accept regular patients; they don't have the numbers to handle everyday cases," Carth mused, remembering the many times that the Republic tried to get Jedi healers to serve as front-line medics. "Hell, I don't think they take most Republic soldiers."

"So why waste their time with a mercenary suffering from brain damage?" Asan finished. "And then lie to him about his posting before his injury had occurred?"

"What does that have to do with what's happening now?"

Asan looked away. "I've been getting bits of memory back. It doesn't make any sense. But Bastila Shan knows. She was the one that requested my presence on the Spire; she told me after we departed from Kuat."

Carth nodded slowly. "You're looking for answers," he summarized.

"Yeah. Anyway, I don't remember anything but fighting, might as well keep at it."

The republic officer laughed hollowly, through the shooting pain in his side. Under Asan's dark eyes, he shook his head. "I suppose I should have expected a selfish motivation. I was beginning to suspect that there was some nobility in you, after all."

"I'm just a mad dog, Carth," Asan answered him quietly. "You shouldn't expect me to be a hero."

"Well you saved my worthless hide," Carth muttered.

"We aren't out of this yet," Asan replied deadpan. "The men I killed will have friends. I'll have to go looking for their enemies. And besides, you could still die to the inevitable fever. Bone marrow must have seeped from the wounded ribs."

"Cheery thought, but there's enough kolto there to tide me over, I think," Carth sighed and nodded his head slowly. "And what do I do if your gangers come here?"

"Shoot them," Asan advised sagely. "But I am getting a few hours of sleep. You should try to rest, too."

"Somebody has to keep watch."

"I rigged a concussion grenade on the door," Asan waved him off. "That'll wake us up. And give any intruders a nasty surprise."

* * *

After a restless night, Asan outfitted himself with the equipment he had stolen and slipped out of the dilapidated apartment and stalked the streets of the Lower City. It was still the earliest hours of the morning, so there were very few people still awake and wandering. The sounds of armed conflict echoed from distant places through the corridors of the city, nearly drowned out by the hum of air scrubbers, roaring swoop bikes, and the general hubbub of a metropolis.

The only thing that he knew about the men that he had killed was a name. Black Vulkars. His feet took him to a cantina that was about a mile away from the abandoned apartments that they were using as a hideout, and the bouncer at the door relieved him of his weapons, save for a vibrosword.

"No blasters or explosives inside. Grab them on your way out," the rodian buzzed in his native tongue. "Cause no trouble."

Asan gestured an affirmative and the doors opened. Wearing the blood-splattered armor and carrying a sword, he must have cut an imposing figure, for the sparse patrons of the cantina scattered from his path as he walked, sitting at the bar and accepting a glass of some clear, strong-smelling liquor. What few credits he had relieved from the Vulkars would suffice for this, and he could use a stiff drink after the previous night.

He'd come for information, but he was lost in thought moments later. He had not dreamt of anything when he slept, but he felt different when he awakened. Every day was moving him further down a path that he couldn't trace on a map. He was becoming something else. Or perhaps he was recovering his old self. Every new memory revealed yet undiscovered depths of terror. Asan didn't know when it would bottom out, or who he would be when that happened.

"Hey, I don't recognize you!" a voice pierced his fugue. Asan glanced to the side and saw a pale blue Twi'Lek woman standing at his side, hips cocked, arm set. Her head-tails were tossed over her shoulders, lips curled just so in a confident smile. The there was a refreshing innocence that clung to her like perfume, and Asan sat straighter. "Are you new in town?"

"Stranded," Asan agreed, raising his glass. "Thanks to the Sith blockade."

"That so?" the girl mused, sitting at his side. The mercenary felt eyes on him and glanced over her shoulder, spotting the hulking Wookiee that was sitting hunched over his meal two tables away, dark beady eyes glittering with unspoken threat.

"Is he with you?" he gestured.

The girl tossed her head. "That's Big Z," she explained. "We go way back. He's a softie. I'm Mission, by the way. Mission Vao. I make it a point to know who's in the neighborhood."

"Yeah?" Asan mused, identifying her at once as an affiliate of a gang. Her purpose was to identify potential threats on their turf. It was possible that she didn't even know that was her role, but it was more likely that she was fishing for information intentionally. He cut to the chase, "My name is Asan. Are you with the Vulkars?"

The girl looked startled. "No!" she exclaimed. "Those lowlife toad-suckers aren't worth the ground we're walking on. I'm a Bek, all the way! We're kind of like a family, you know."

Asan smiled, pleasantly surprised. "I thought this was Vulkar turf. I've run into them often enough."

"They don't like outsiders much, them Vulkars," Mission mused. "I hope you messed them up. You look tough."

"They won't be bothering anyone again, I'll say," Asan allowed. "They don't like me much anymore. I was actually looking to see if I could find anyone who's standing up to the Vulkars. All by myself, I'm liable to get run down eventually."

"Anyone who's an enemy of the Vulkars is a friend of the Beks," Mission declared emphatically, smile widening. "Uh…I don't know if you're aware, but there's blood on your armor."

"I know," Asan nodded, looking into her eyes for a moment. He saw the slight dilation, the way she leaned towards him, and his lips tugged slightly into a barely perceptible grin. "Who can I talk to about establishing a friendship with the Beks?"

"Our outpost is less than a mile down, there's a picket at the door. Tell her that Mission sent you," the girl explained. "I guess I'll see you around, Asan."

Asan felt that it would be useful to have a friendly face in the Beks, someone that would be open to favors in the future if it ever became necessary. So that was why he leaned slightly closer and adopted a serious expression. "Listen, my friend took a bad hit in a scuffle earlier. He's holed up in the abandoned apartments down that way."

"How bad?" Mission asked at once, eyes bright with concern. She had a kind heart; it was downright precious.

Asan shrugged. "I patched him up, but he's a sitting duck. I'd be indebted to you if you'd swing by that way and bring him back to your outpost. You look like you can take care of yourself."

The girl puffed out her chest and her eyes flashed. He felt almost bad pushing her buttons so expertly, but she was as easy to read as an open book. She was young and eager to prove herself, attracted to danger, with a kind heart. "You can count on me!" she declared. Asan had to reach out and touch her arm to stop her from walking away right then.

"There's a booby trap on the door," he warned. "And make sure to shout that Jedi are sanctimonious pricks before you go inside, or you're likely to get shot. He's a bit touchy, my friend."

The reminder that the task was dangerous sobered her up, but her eyes were steely with determination. "Got it."

When she was gone, taking her big Wookiee friend with her, Asan shook his head and turned back to his drink. He wondered how a girl like her had lasted for so long while preserving that innocent heart, in a world that so delighted in tarnishing anything that was polished.

But then he figured anyone with a big, tough, primal friend like Big Z could afford a little naivety.

When he was finished he slid a few credits across the bar and stood up, brooding on the darker thoughts that had lurked at the edges of his mind. Why was there a part of him that urged him to shepherd that girl into the murky waters of the world himself? It had been the same way with Bastila. And, in some ways, with Carth.

He had wanted to take Bastila's ideals and shatter them. To show her the folly of her doctrine, the hypocrisy of her Code. He had wanted to take her conviction in a fist and break its spine. With Carth, he wanted to share the violent delight that he had discovered in war, to poison the honorable soldier's view of the struggle and his motivation. For Mission, he wanted to show her those parts of the world that would strip away what innocence she retained, that would turn her soft heart to stone. In the end, he wanted them all to thank him for it.

They were living lies, each of them deluding themselves further every day that they continued in the carefully constructed glass houses that they had built around themselves. But Asan was walking in the mire, trudging through dark reality. And he wanted to bring them down with him, carry each of them to the same ruinous places that had somehow broken him.

The full import of this desire was dawning upon him as he walked, scowling darkly, the short distance to the Bek Outpost. He didn't know, really, what had broken him. Couldn't remember it. He couldn't put a name to the gnawing void in his chest that begged to be shared, didn't remember that either. He only knew that his restraint was slipping with every old memory that broke into his fragile personality. Asan didn't know whether to fight against it or to go searching for the truth.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Who are you?" a brusque Twi'Lek woman with a startling maroon and white coloring demanded the moment that the picket deposited him at the desk of a tall, powerfully built human man whose back was turned.

"My name is Asan Dumat," he introduced himself with a shallow nod. "I spoke to Mission Vao in the cantina. I've had some run-ins with the Black Vulkars, and I thought that since we have a mutual enemy we could exchange favors."

The woman scoffed. "Get lost. If we catered to every poor soul looking for 'favors' we wouldn't be much of a gang at all."

"Now, now Zaerdra," the man chided, turning. Asan was somewhat startled to see his pale white eyes, sightless, but he only found a higher respect for the apparent leader of the Beks. It was hard enough to be a leader of an undisciplined gang when both eyes were functional, let alone while blind. "If my sources are correct, this is the man that braved the Sith checkpoints to make it down to the Lower City. That was quite the scrap. We could use a man of his skills."

Asan narrowed eyes. "How can you be sure that it was me?"

"Before the Sith showed up and destroyed everything that I'd been working towards for the last ten years, we had established a friendly partnership with the Republic garrison. Under the table, of course. Higher-ups would never approve a paramilitary gang in cahoots with the government-sanctioned garrison. But, as things stand, we still have backdoor access to some of the patrol cameras in the Upper City. We caught glimpses of the assault. Of course, your face was obscured, but when some of our scouts reported that two groups of Black Vulkars had been taken out by one man, I knew that it must have been the same one that broke through the checkpoint. There aren't very many people who can pull something like that off."

"The Black Vulkars are nothing but thugs," Asan replied with a shrug.

"True," the man replied. "But I know better than anyone that a thug can always get in a lucky shot. I know that your partner, for example, took a hit at some point last night."

Asan cocked his head. They must have had somebody trailing Mission, and that displayed a measure of loyalty and wariness that he had not expected from a gang, even a paramilitary gang. "That was the Sith, actually. I killed the Vulkars for their supplies."

"You're wearing some of their armor, I see," the man observed. "If there's one thing the Vulkars have, it's money. They deal in spice and slaves, two very profitable industries that the Beks won't have any hand in. We deal mostly in protection and bounties."

Protection was another, subtler word for extortion, but Asan kept his mouth shut. "The armor didn't have an insignia or other distinguishing mark."

"The make and model are as much an insignia as a tattoo or stitching," the man replied. "It's no matter. There is something that you could do for me, actually. You seemed very confident that you could handle the Vulkars, which might be just what I'm looking for."

Asan shrugged. "What is it?"

"They stole something very important from the Beks when one of our men defected. Brejik has put up Republic officers as slaves for the upcoming swoop race. My engineers had devised an experimental booster that would have guaranteed us the prize. However, the prototype was stolen."

"Gadon, does this outsider really need to know about that?" Zaerdra interrupted.

"What use do you have for Republic officers as slaves?" Asan asked softly.

"We don't have any use for them," Gadon continued, ignoring his second-in-command. "But we had a good relationship with the Republic while they were here, and if I can keep their officers from a life of slavery on Taris, then I will."

Asan nodded slowly, "The Sith will come for you."

"And they'll find every gun behind every door in the Lower City of Taris aimed at them when they do," Gadon replied stonily. "We don't welcome hostile invaders on our world, in case you didn't know that."

 _Taris…a city._

 _Flashes of blue and green light. Screaming. Fighters screeching through the sky…buildings shake, pitching into each other. Shrapnel blasting through the air, white-hot. Searing pain in his side, smoke billowing around. The visor of a Mandalorian in the fog…a flashing rifle in the smoke. The rumble of distant thunder._

 _Hate. Anger. Frustration. Someone was screaming…_

"Yeah…I know," Asan whispered, pinching his nose a moment as a memory crashed through his mind like a ton of bricks. "So, you want me to get this prototype back for you."

"That's right," Gadon agreed, smiling like a wolf. "If you do that, then we can do something for you. Name it."

"We're looking for a Republic officer by the name of Bastila Shan," Asan divulged, following his gut. They might have been lying about their relationship with the Republic, but he didn't think so. "If she's a part of the prize, then she leaves with us. Otherwise, you help us find her."

"He's looking for Republic officers! He could be working for the Sith," Zaerdra exclaimed. Asan narrowed his eyes at her and opened his mouth, but Gadon beat him to the punch.

"The Sith wouldn't attack their own patrols, even undercover. They would be down here with a battalion knocking on our door if they thought we knew anything at all about Bastila. I've heard of her. The Jedi woman," Gadon exclaimed. "I'll accept these terms. Mission can help you retrieve the prototype, but you'll have to catch up with her. She dropped your friend off five minutes ago and took off, heading towards the Undercity."

"We think that Bastila's escape pod crashed in the Undercity," Asan offered.

Gadon winced. "If that's the case, she's either dead or in the custody of the Black Vulkars. They were the first ones willing to risk the manpower to search the downed pods. The rakghouls are a menace…we didn't dare venture that far out on the surface. The Exchange and the Sith got there late, all they found was salvage from the machines."

"I'll look for her," Asan promised. "Where's Carth?"

"We found a cot for him someplace. Check through there, but don't tarry long," Gadon warned. "Mission's quick, and I wouldn't spend too long searching in the Undercity. You're liable to run into worse things than Vulkars down there, and it isn't easy getting back up once you go down."

"Got it."

Asan found Carth right where he'd been told to look, and the man was sitting up with a rifle across his lap looking highly uncomfortable. It was comical enough that Asan barked a short laugh when he spotted him, sauntering over while Carth narrowed his eyes at him. "You thought it was a good idea to send a teenager and her Wookiee to pick me up?"

Asan shrugged. "Worked, didn't it?"

"We're working with gangs now?"

"You don't get to complain; you got yourself shot," Asan pointed out simply. "I'm going to the Undercity to look for Bastila. Got a favor to do for these fellas while I'm down there. Might be awhile."

"You want me to just sit around while you're gone?" Carth grumped, rolling his shoulder and wincing as the muscles in his side pulled at the tube and bandages. Asan was impressed; the man must have been in _significant_ pain, but he hardly showed it.

"We don't have much of a choice. Try to play nice," Asan chided, slapping Carth on his shoulder on the uninjured side. The soldier cried out and glared, but Asan only offered a half-grin, eyes flashing. He walked away before Carth could argue with him further.

* * *

The turbolift to the Undercity was a mile away, and Asan didn't see Mission at any point along the way, so he passed through the deserted checkpoint, eyeing the recent scorch marks and blast points, and stepped into the lift. There were several other areas of the Lower City on Taris, but this lift dropped straight to the Undercity without stopping. Once inside, the doors closed behind him and it plummeted like a rock. The journey took about a minute, which marked several kilometers, assuming that the lift had gone into free fall at some point in the journey. When the doors opened it revealed desolation.

The surface of the planet may, once, have been verdant, like most habitable worlds in the galaxy, but the only trees present here were the towering foundations of the superstructures that made up the city above them. Pale white lights shined from the corners, utility lamps of a kind that were powered by the sun many kilometers above. There wasn't a single ray of natural light that pierced the dense forest to touch the forsaken ground below. The soil was gray, dusty, and lifeless.

Nothing moved. Not even a breeze.

There were people here, dressed in tattered clothing and covered in grime, as filthy as could be, clutching to each other or to their meager belongings. Their eyes, bright and fearful, stared out at him from the shadows of their tents.

There were a pair of young boys that stole away from their group to approach him, like skittish animals. One of them spoke in a rasping voice. "This is our elevator. To use it, you have to give us five credits."

"Yeah! You can't use it without paying the toll," the second agreed.

Asan shook his head at the pathetic display. "I'm not giving you anything," he replied.

"You have to pay to use our elevator!" the first insisted. "If you don't…if you don't…"

"Then what," Asan urged, resting a hand upon his weapon, eyes glittering in the pale light. "What will you do?"

"Hey, you boys! Back off, leave him alone!" a woman's voice cracked like a whip across the beggars. They startled like deer and bolted. Asan relaxed a bit, turning towards the woman that approached a sedate pace, a soft expression on her face. "Sorry about them. Always snapping at the heels of the upworlders."

"Some things bite back," Asan warned, shaking his head. "What is this place?"

"This is the outcast refuge," the woman replied. "Those of us that are cast down from the upworld languish here, with only our sins and each other for company. Life is hard but…it's all we know."

Asan looked around at the tents, at the emaciated people with dry, pale skin. Most of them would die of exposure or hunger before they reached the age of thirty, he figured. The rest would linger on, the survivors, growing older and watching the generations pass away around them, oftentimes supported by the efforts of the community for the benefit of their wisdom. These people were not the criminals that their ancestors may have been. The sins of their forefathers fell upon them with grievous weight.

But there was nothing that he could do. Even if there was, there wasn't the time to relieve suffering here properly. So, he nodded to the woman. "Thanks for the help. I have to go."

"Oh! Of course," she sighed, looking away. "Be careful."

Asan watched her go, perplexed. How could she possibly offer advice to him, when her own life was in such shambles? Why would she care enough to offer any kind of good wishes? By all rights she ought to have been as desperate as the boys that she had shooed away. What hope did she have to spare, that she could offer even a thought to him?

He walked briskly through the camp, every step throwing up a small cloud of dust around his boot, and when he reached the gate he saw a man pleading through the rusted durasteel mesh, a length of steel in his right arm. His eyes were wild, but he was at least ten paces away from the gate, leaning imploringly.

"Please! They're coming!"

"Ah, they're too close," the gatekeeper called back. "I can't risk it!"

"Please!" a woman cried out. "That's my husband!"

Asan stopped at the gate. He felt a dark, cold thing reaching to him from the cloying shadows at the edge of the light. "Open it, I will fight them," he declared.

The gatekeeper glanced at him, surprised. "I'm closing it behind you, upworlder."

Then the gate fell, and Asan was drawing his sword, not entirely sure what had compelled him to make the challenge but confident in his ability to overcome it. In the silence of the Undercity, the rasp of his sword rang out and resounded in an echo, met at once by the snarling advance of the rakghouls. The outcast man turned towards the noise and brought up his spear, a rough thing of durasteel with one end filed to a point.

The pack of beasts scampered into the light on all fours, moving swiftly. Their skin was as pale as the outcast's but marked by blackened veins. Eyes glittered golden and wide, corrupted jaws snapped, unhinged, with teeth that may once have been human but were now pointed, cracked, and misaligned. It was a jagged, snapping maw, filled with vile black venom and chunks of rotting flesh. Each beast was large, larger than a man, and they moved with a certain unpredictable stagger. There were six of them, spreading out, hunting in a pack, now faced with two quarries instead of one. They hesitated, and Asan tensed.

One of them leapt forward and the outcast man shouted a battle-cry, meeting the charge. Asan shook his head and stepped wide, forcing the beasts to fall away or lunge. Another snarled and snapped at him. He swung, catching it on the very tip of his sword. A wet smack, like a cut of meat hitting a table, split the stillness and thick, gooey red blood splattered across the gray dust, followed by the beast's jaw which was severed along with half of its upper teeth. Still, it came on, and Asan struck again, slicing through an arm and bringing his sword around to crunch halfway through the chest on the backswing. He kicked out, stepping back and pivoting on instinct, running his sword into the gullet of a second, flanking beast.

Then he was swarmed. He jumped, put his foot on the head of one and flipped, driving his sword point first at the base of the skull, ripping it free to knock aside a desperate, aimless lunging creature that slithered over his back, scrabbling over his armor with claws that were blunted from endless hours spent running through coarse dirt. Lethal jaws snapped inches from face, and he kicked his leg forward, knocking it back.

The outcast collapsed on his back, bracing his spear lengthwise against the slobbering maw of a ghoul, but a second scampered around him and engulfed his head completely in its mouth. A wet crunch and a muffled scream, then the man's legs kicked uselessly, arms collapsing against the weight of the first, which tore into his chest with vicious glee.

Asan beheaded another and faced the two gorging beasts. Before they had turned to face him he cut one of them down. The second lunged over his head as he ducked, spinning around and cutting four times, one for each leg and two across the chest. The beast was howling as it dragged itself across the dust towards him, dark eyes glittering, mad with bloodlust. Asan's weapon flashed in the pale light and silence met him again.

"Behind you!"

He spun. The ruined face of the outcast was twisting, warping. A sudden chill swept over the clearing, and Asan felt a deep wrongness settling around him as the body heaved as if it was drawing breath. Eyes that had been torn to ribbons suddenly opened, whole and glowing orange. The young rakghoul howled to the darkness, bracing its arms against the ground, already directing it baleful gaze to the mercenary in spite of its gaping chest wounds, although even those grievous injuries were beginning to scar before the mercenary's very eyes.

Asan approached with a single step.

"NO!" the scream came from the gate.

Then he drove his sword through the skull of the outcast-turned-rakghoul, feeling bone crunch under his weight. When the body twitched he pulled it free and drive it again, through the heart. Then he stepped back, surrounded by the corpses of the monstrosities and breathing heavily. Muted sobs echoed from the shadows behind the gate, and Asan didn't look to see the woman's face. He just turned away, spotting a pair of footsteps in the dust, and followed them away into the deserted wasteland of Taris' surface.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

His heart still raced nearly an hour after the combat had subsided, a dark satisfaction settling in his chest like a cold drink for the thirsty. Asan didn't understand it, and he wasn't entirely comfortable with how it had seemed to compel him into facing the rakghouls. There should have been horror in those monsters, something to drive him off or at least give him caution, but it had only incensed him, called to him. And when the darkness had revealed itself in the outcast's corpse, he had not been surprised.

There was something darkly familiar about the rakghouls. Something glared out at him from their golden eyes, something that Asan knew he had met before, but the name was forgotten. He knew that he ought to understand this fundamental aspect of the beasts, the critical part of their being that was central to his understanding of himself. But he was only coming up harshly against the void in his memory, the wound that had been inflicted on his mind. His frustration began to bleed into his actions as he followed the trail left by Mission and her friend. Wookiee tracks were distinctive because of their size and distinctive shape, usually deeper than the tracks of other species. They must have crossed paths with a small pack of rakghouls, since there were some bodies strewn across the dust, bearing the distinctive wounds of a bowcaster.

He didn't have to follow it the whole way. His quarry rushed out of the shadows ahead of him at a jog, but her partner was notably absent. Asan drew to a halt, holding his naked sword at his side, half-expecting rakghouls to show themselves at her heels. But she rushed straight up to him, tears streaking her face and breathless. "They…they took him!"

"Mission," Asan urged. "Breathe. Tell me what happened."

"Gamorrean slavers took Big Z. We…we were in the sewers, poking around, you know, just seeing what we could see. I knew that they were hanging around down there, but they always left us alone. Today they were waiting and…and…" she burst into tears again.

Asan pursed his lips. "Hey, well get him back. No one goes anywhere fast in the Undercity. They can't have wandered far."

"You…you'd do that?" Mission asked softly, wiping snot from her little nose, eyes wide with hope and disbelief. Asan shrugged.

"If you help me get into the Black Vulkar base to steal back a prototype swoop bike booster," he offered, knowing that she would feel better if it was an exchange instead of charity.

Mission nodded, bottom lip wobbling for a moment before she set her jaw. "Deal. Come on! I'll show you where they…"

"Lead on."

He would come to regret those words. In fact, the moment came when she opened up the sewer access and the stench of waste hit him like a solid wall. Still, he ducked through the rusting hatch after her and followed as they walked the twisting maintenance catwalks, past pouring rivers of septic fluid and rising clouds of choking gas.

Mission stopped at regular intervals, letting him catch up. She was being reckless, moving too quickly. Traps that had been left behind or creatures lurking in the dark would be too swift for her to notice, but Asan's urgings fell upon deaf ears. Eventually, however, her common sense demanded that they slow, and they reached the place where a struggle had taken place. The walls were painted with streaks of blood and a dead gamorrean was laid on his back, guts open and laying on the duracrete. The stench there was an improvement, incredibly, but it wasn't pleasant by any stretch of the imagination.

"No loyalty among thieves," Asan murmured, eying the corpse. "Where do their normally hang about?"

"Lower," Mission answered, gesturing to a passage leading down and to the right. "They keep their merchandise down here before shipping to the Exchange in the Upper City. Mostly it's outcasts, some gangers, the occasional unwary child on the Lower City."

Asan felt dark anger bubbling beneath the surface at this description. "Despicable creatures. We need to be more careful here. They might have left traps."

"Gamorreans aren't smart enough for traps. Believe me, they're barely capable of carrying their axes and walking at the same time," Mission scoffed. "There are some mines down here, really old. Probably leftover from the Mandalorian Wars or the Sith Wars."

"Even so," Asan reiterated, pressing forward. "I'll lead. Tell me where to go."

And she did. Down, down, down they went, barely speaking save to debate directions. Asan began to smell the distinct odor of gamorrean and knew that they were nearing their hideout. There were no guards, no pickets, no droids, no cameras. It put him on edge.

"These are old style locks, with real tumblers," Mission exclaimed in a whisper. "Not many people can pick them, but I can. Just sit tight for a moment and….there."

The lock clicked. Then the door snapped open with a shuddering bang that echoed down the corridor and back again, shaking rust free from the pipes overhead. Mission jumped about a foot in the air and Asan drew his vibrosword, turning towards the doors that were opening all down the catwalk. Gamorreans were stepping out, carrying their iconic axes.

"You get a shot, you take it!" Asan shouted over their rising grunts and squeals. Mission shuddered like a leaf in the wind, terror rising, but she drank in the form of the strong warrior before her, sword glinting darkly in the flickering yellow halide lights, armor splattered with blood, glistening moist, skin gleaming, eyes churning in dark expectation. Then he was rushing down the catwalk to meet the slavers, a single man against eight.

Mission was not a stranger to violence. Big Z was a beast in a fight, like most wookiees, and she wasn't a bad shot herself. But watching this mad dash and the subsequent melee was a revelation in brutality that struck a chord deep within her. This man, wielding a vibrosword and wearing common light armor, faced down a jostling gaggle of gamorreans, met the charge of aliens three times his size, and cut them down. His blade flashed, blood splattered, axes ground. Sparks flew. He was jumping, ducking, falling back along the rampart. Mission brought her gun up and laid a hail of blaster shots past him, but only when it was certain that he wasn't going to dodge into her aim.

At some point, his sword was broken by the strike of an axe and he was using their weapons against them, swinging the primitive weapon in murderous arcs, biting deep, tearing chunks from his opponents. He flowed like water, struck like a bullet. Always a step ahead of the slavers, they really hadn't stood a chance. She was watching an artist at work.

In minutes there was only two of the slavers left. Corpses and dying creatures were strewn across the catwalk, and he stalked among them, carrying the blood-soaked axe in his right hand, the broken vibrosword in his left. They scrambled away from him, squealing, and Mission averted her eyes as Asan executed them. Then the only sounds in the sewers were echoing waterfalls and his ragged breathing.

Mission picked her way through the slaughter and stood a few paces away, uncertain. "Asan?" she called.

He glanced at her, and she was struck by his flushed expression. Wide eyes, parted lips. There was blood on his face, coating his armor, his arms, his legs, but he looked exultant, euphoric. Victorious. "Mission?" he parroted her tentative question, adjusting his grip on the axe as if only just realizing that she was there. "They're dead."

"Yeah," she agreed, looking down and pursing her lips. Her heart was racing against her ribcage. "I'd say so. I've never seen anything like that before in my life."

"Yeah?" Asan murmured, rolling his shoulders and hissing as he felt his newly acquired cuts stinging. Most were shallow, but in a place like this, infection was sure to set in if he didn't clean them in short order. "Let's find your friend."

They searched the deserted hideout for hours. Stumbling across cages containing the ravaged corpses of women, children, Asan's countenance grew darker with every moment. Eventually they found the intact merchandise, a set of fifteen cages, eight of them filled. Big Z was in the largest cage, but there were others as well, most of them women. Their clothing was essentially nonexistent, tattered as evidence of the gamorreans' cruel exploitation. One child was hunched in his cage at the end, motionless.

"Kriffing hells," he breathed, feeling something _dark_ squirming in him at the sight of such suffering. He recognized that feeling, the sickness. It was what he had seen in the rakghouls; he felt it in himself.

"Get your friend out," Asan croaked, feeling dread in his gut. Mission was trembling, but moved forward and picked the locks on his cage. The wookiee was moving gingerly, but he caught her up in a hug and carried her over to Asan, setting her down only to wrap up the mercenary in a similar embrace. The wookiee was rumbling deep in his chest and growling.

"Thank you, thank you…"

"I wasn't just going to leave you," Mission exclaimed.

Big Z looked at her and laid his paws on her shoulders. "That was what I expected of you," he rumbled. "It would have been the wise thing to do."

"Please!" one of the women interrupted them. "You have to help us!"

Mission swallowed and took in the scene once again. "What are we going to do?" she whispered.

Asan could see her practical mind warring with her big heart. There was a deep pain in her eyes, rising, as she came to the same conclusion that he had already arrived at, but which he had been avoiding. They couldn't save these people. A procession of victims like this would attract rakghouls in great numbers, and Asan couldn't protect them. Maybe one additional soul, two if they were being terribly risky.

"I will escort one of them to the outcasts," Big Z offered softly, already understanding the situation. He had probably resigned himself to death before their arrival, but now faced with life, he understood how to preserve it. "But first, I must satisfy my honor. You have saved me from a lifetime of servitude and torture. For this, I owe you a life debt."

Asan drew himself up and nodded, slowly. "If that is what you wish, then I accept," he agreed without preamble, knowing that refusal would crush the wookiee's honor and that he didn't have time to argue. Besides, loyalty like that was hard to come by.

"Well, I go where Big Z goes, so it looks like you're stuck with us," Mission interjected, some of her previous joy shining through, even here, in the face of tragedy.

"What is your name?" Asan asked.

"Zaalbar."

Asan nodded and gestured to the boy's cage. "Take the boy to the outcasts."

"What are you going to do?" Mission whispered.

"Wait for me at the end of the catwalk," he answered, looking into her eyes, reading her open expression. Whatever joy had shined through died in that moment, as her sharp mind confronted his intent. Her heart lurched, he could see it bleeding for the women in the cages, but she nodded her head, numb. Opening the boy's cage, she rushed out of the room, and Zaalbar carried the child away, leaving Asan alone.

"Please…" one of the women pleaded again as he stood at the bars of her cage. "Don't leave us here."

"I won't," Asan whispered, a mockery of comfort. He hefted the axe in his hand.

When he returned to Mission's side she was staring at the walls, hands over her ear canals, trembling. It wouldn't have spared her the sounds of slaughter, but it might have helped some. He touched her shoulder and she startled, staring up at him for a moment with disgust, before rushing forward and sobbing into his chest, arms clutching at his back. He held her, swaying under the weight of what he had done, whispering nothing into the sound of rushing water.

Eventually she pulled away, stoic once more. Or at least as stoic as she could get with her eyes red and tear tracks on her face. It blended into the generally dampness of the air after a minute and there was hardly a sign that anything had happened. But Asan could see the scars already forming on her heart, the very thing that he had admired once before. He saw the dark crawling in her eyes that had once been light. And parts of him relished this corruption of the pure, even as the remnants of a good man ached. The bittersweet feeling settled over him as he dropped his arm from her shoulder, bending to retrieve the blaster that she had dropped. He pressed it into her palm.

"It was a mercy," he whispered, to himself and to her. "The gamorreans killed them when they were brought down here. We couldn't save them all and leaving them for the rakghouls is a fate worse than death."

"That doesn't make it better," Mission answered. Peering at his face, she wondered if he was suddenly paler than before, or if it was a trick of the light. "Doesn't change what was done."

"You're right. Then it's on me. I held the headsman's axe, Mission. Let's find the Vulkar base," Asan urged. Mission glanced back the way they'd come, at the wake of death left behind, and led the way in silence.

* * *

"Where are you from?" Mission asked, at some point. Asan glanced at her for a moment, eyes glittering, seeking the reason for the question, before he finally shrugged.

"Don't remember," he replied brusquely. She seemed startled.

"What do you mean?"

Asan sighed. "Amnesia," he explained, tapping the side of his head. "I had a bad injury awhile ago. Don't remember much, just bits and pieces of somebody else's life."

"That sounds horrible," Mission murmured. Asan shrugged.

"Don't really know what I'm missing," he rationalized, glancing over at her when she stopped.

Mission shuffled her feet. "I don't know you very well, you know? But, uh…I think it's pretty impressive, how you're handling all this."

"What?" Asan mused darkly. "With gratuitous amounts of violence and slaughter?"

Mission blushed lightly. "You just…face down problems as they come and keep going. Nothing stands in your way."

"Well, you're the one that gets to bandage me up when we get back to the Bek outpost," Asan drawled, rolling his shoulders again and feeling his wounds. "Where are we going?"

"There's an old terminal here that separates the older sewers from this newer section. It has a rolling encryption, but I cracked its algorithm ages ago, and nobody bothers to update it. Give me a second…" Mission mumbled, reaching out to tap her fingers across a holographic display.

A heavy magnetically sealed blast door rumbled open a moment later, as Asan stared at it with a raised eyebrow. Mission stepped through it and stopped, looking down a long corridor to a large circular chamber where water was pouring down in a column of filth.

"It's a straight shot to the Vulkar base from here," she said, gesturing vaguely.

Asan sighed and slung the axe over his shoulder. "Tell me about the layout while we walk."


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It was suicide, but they did it anyway. Facing a rancor with nothing but a handful of grenades and a vial of some foul-smelling chemicals was climbing dangerously near levels of insanity that Asan wouldn't dare to risk, but watching the incredible beast blowing itself to pieces was just satisfying enough to justify the risk. The exclamations of the Vulkars guarding the sewer entrance dimmed his excitement, and Mission tensed at his side.

"What now?" she whispered.

Now that was the question. From what she had told him about the Vulkar base, which amounted to basic layouts that the Beks had stolen from their computers, there could easily be as many as a hundred Vulkars inside. If this wasn't their main base of operations then they probably didn't have a full garrison. A hundred was pushing the larger end of criminal gangs, but it appeared that the Vulkars had friends in high places, likely in the Exchange given their preferred trade, so it wasn't impossible. With one hundred potential opponents, the task that he'd been given was beginning to look more and more dauting, but Asan was up for a challenge.

The trick would be to divide their strength. Facing a hundred at once was suicide.

"You're a decent slicer," Asan observed. "If we can get you to a terminal, then you can sow chaos. Trigger alarms, overload circuits, activate automated defenses, corrupt targeting systems…"

"Yeah," Mission agreed. "But they'll figure out what's going on pretty quick if all that starts happening."

"Not if they're also dealing with an assault," Asan explained. "I'll make some noise, crack some skulls. Then when alarms start going off, they'll be forced to respond. By the time they realize they've been hacked, they will hopefully be far enough out of position that they can't respond to my movements. And you can keep watch on cameras, keep them from flanking me."

"Okay, but how do we get inside?" Mission asked.

Asan hefted the gamorrean axe, still soaked with blood. "We knock."

The pair of guards that had wandered out to investigate the rancor corpse dropped to blaster fire from Mission as Asan hugged the wall, sprinting towards the turbolift. He'd expected a barricaded checkpoint, but what he found was an empty rampart and an open door.

Mission sauntered up and into the elevator. "They never expected anyone to find this entrance, I think," she offered as Asan warily stepped up beside her. "Especially with a rancor just outside."

"Why were there guards here at all?"

"Probably watching for rakghoul," Mission shrugged.

"They could have reported in," Asan cautioned, pressing against the side of the elevator and gesturing for Mission to do the same.

It turned out that his precautions were for nothing, the door opened to reveal an empty corridor. Mission pressed a finger to her lips and touched her belt, shimmering out of view as a stealth field coalesced around her. "I'll find a terminal. Here, I can contact you through this communicator."

Asan hooked it to his shoulder and nodded. "I'll give you three minutes, then I'll start a ruckus."

He didn't have to wait that long for Mission's voice to chitter in his ear. "Got a terminal here. They don't have very good security…I'm in. Looks like you've got company on this floor. Six in the hall ahead of you, eight in what looks like an armory, and six at the front entrance. The second level has twenty or so, mostly in the swoop garage."

That was less than he had expected, but still quite a lot of opponents for two. He touched the device to activate the microphone. "What can you do from that terminal?"

"A few overloaded conduits, gas vents, and turret targeting routines," Mission answered at once. "Ready when you are."

"Okay. When you hear blaster fire, blow the circuits, but don't mess with the turrets until the turbolift starts to move," Asan whispered, proceeding down the corridor.

"Got it," Mission chirped.

The Vulkars in the hall were spread out, attending to their duties in various rooms. One of them was fixing a blaster in the first room that Asan entered, and he didn't even look up until an axe-blade was buried between his shoulder blades. At that point, it was too late for him to reach for a working rifle, and he slumped over the workbench as Assan wrenched the weapon free. He swept up the rifle, reassembled the power cell, thumbed the power. It hummed in his arms, a modified Aratech infantry model, accurate and fast. Stripping the Vulkars sidearm, he clipped that to his belt and pressed on.

In the corridor, he was recognized at once as an intruder, but the nikto that spotted him died before he could scream, blaster shots ringing down the corridor. A moment later the distant sounds of explosions and electrical discharges echoed towards him, accompanied by screams. Clearing each room, Asan advanced, exchanging shots twice.

"Three coming down the corridor," Mission advised. "Slaves have armed themselves and are attacking at the other side of the base, in the cantina."

Asan burst into the corridor right in the middle of the group of three, blowing the brains of one out the back of his head, beheading the second with his axe, and kicking the third against the wall, where he was riddled with blaster shots until he stopped twitching. The whole confrontation took less than five seconds, and when he was finished he proceeded around the corner, to a larger room.

"The men at the front have abandoned their posts, their coming towards you," Mission warned. "The turbolifts from the second level are packed full, coming down."

"Activate the turrets when they step out," Asan commanded, ducking behind crates with his rifle aimed towards the entrance. Six gangers rushed forward in disarray, weapons carried in all sorts of haphazard ways, in no discernible formation. When he opened fire they scattered, but not before three of them had been tagged, two of them killed. The third was crawling pitifully towards his fellows, groaning.

The sporadic cover available to them was mostly plastisteel cylinders and crates, likely filled with arms and armor. Asan fired at one and it exploded into green fire, consuming the man behind it instantly. The others stood up and rushed him, only to be cut down mid-step, even as they sprayed blaster bolts to cover their advance.

"Slaves are dead, the men from the armory are cutting back," Mission hissed. "The turrets decimated the group from the second floor, but I'm getting resistance now through the system. Looks like they have a slicer. You might have company pretty soon."

"Better for them to come down than to face them out of an elevator," Asan reassured her. "If you can't do anything else, then cripple the system and join me."

"Got it."

If his counts were correct, and no one from the second floor had come down, then there were only seven left. Pressing on, Asan found himself in an armory, scooping up frag grenades before posting up beside the door and peeking around. Five Vulkars were rushing down the corridor; Asan primed a grenade and rolled it forward. It was right at their feet when it went off, blowing three of them to pieces. The two at the back were stunned, and he opened fire before they could recover. A pair at the back of the hall, late-comers, returned fire, and Asan ducked back.

He heard the turbolift doors bang open. So, they had company. An elevator typically held five or six, but if they really packed it tight then there could be as many as eight.

"I'm at the front of the armory," Mission said.

"We've got ten at most at the end of this hall. Turbolift is running," Asan reported. "There's no cover, but I have grenades. When they push, we can counter."

He heard pounding footsteps. "Now."

Another grenade lobbed, a hail of blaster fire. The withering storm that met him was interrupted immediately by the ground-shaking explosion which ripped through the corridor, tearing great rends in the steel and deafening him. Turning the corner, Asan rushed forward, firing at anything that moved. Another grenade primed, he bounced it into the atrium with the turrets, motioning for Mission to come forward. She rushed ahead, watching the end of the hall.

When the grenade went off, Asan rushed past the door. "Watch the lift!" he bellowed over the ringing in his ears. Mission nodded, working her hands on the grip of her blaster. He cleared the cantina, pool, and maintenance bay, finding nothing but carnage. Fifteen to twenty bodies were strewn about in blood, most of them unarmored women and emaciated men. Slaves. Backtracking, Asan found Mission in a gunfight with a group out of the turbolift, which appeared to have stopped in place.

He joined with his final grenade, posting up beside the door. With no cover, they didn't stand a chance, and soon an eerie silence had settled over the base. Asan breathed for a moment, looked his partner over. "You good?"

"I'm not hurt," Mission reported, though she looked down at herself to reaffirm that statement.

"We can't just take that lift," Asan mused with a shake of his head. "You saw how easy it is to defend an elevator. We need energy shields; I didn't see any Vulkars with disruptors."

"I'll check the armory," Mission offered.

"Go on. They won't risk another foray down that shaft," Asan agreed.

He wasn't sure why the Beks had taken so long to defeat the Vulkars, if this base was a representative example of their abilities. What he had seen was essentially fools playing at soldiers, boys pretending to be men. The Vulkars had failed to properly respond to the situation, had moved without proper organization, and none of them had been competent with the weapons provided to them.

That was no excuse to get lazy; even a rank amateur could get in a lucky shot.

Mission returned a moment later with three energy shields and two vibroswords. The shield emitters interfered with blasters, making it difficult if not impossible to use a blaster with the shield unless it was a more expensive, hardened version of the useless weapons that were strewn throughout the base. Happy to discard the bloody axe, Asan accepted the sword and hooked a shield onto each forearm.

"You're going to get yourself shot," Mission chided, watching him prepare.

"That's what I get paid for," he replied with a savage grin. "You stay, wait for the elevator to come back down, then come on up. Might be a firefight in progress."

"Those shields are only rated for a few direct hits," the girl tried again.

Asan bent down and heaved a corpse into his arms before activating the shield emitter with a twist of his arm. "I'll improvise," he quipped, stepping over the carnage in the elevator lobby and into the lift. "See you soon."

The doors slammed shut and his heart clenched. He was locked in, but time slowed to a crawl as the turbolift hummed, gaining speed. His stomach fell, and his knees bent with its momentum. He closed his eyes, breathed. A moment of reflection passed, on the lives he'd taken that day. On the blood spilt. Then he set his jaw and stared at the closed door, felt himself slowing down. His hands trembled minutely moments before the lift came to a stop, and they didn't stop until the door had cracked and time stopped.

He was moving before it had fully opened, heaving the corpse in front of his body and shouting a wordless battle-cry as he charged headfirst into a hail of blasterfire. The shots splattered over the armor, sizzled into deceased flesh, and hissed within inches of his ears. His shield flared three times and fell in a blinding halo of white energy, but he had already activated the second, pushing away the body and drawing his sword as he lunged over a swoop bike and into a group of three desperate Vulkars.

In a single second he identified four groups of three relatively close to the elevator and a pair at the back, on a maintenance platform. Interestingly, he hadn't taken any fire from that high ground, so they must have been officers, people who preferred not to get their hands dirty. That was fine with Asan.

He drove his sword through the chest of a nikto who'd turned towards him, prepared to fire at point blank. The rifle barked and the shot went wide, ricocheted off the bike and bit into the calf of the man at Asan's left. Wrenching his sword free, reveling in the keen edge that cleaved flesh like butter, Asan cut the staggering man down and rushed in close to the last, who was fumbling with a sword at his belt. It got caught in his clumsy draw, the sheath swinging up with his arm, and Asan gutted him, wrapped the ganger in a one-arm embrace, and swung him around into the line of fire from his back.

He didn't stop to think about how he'd predicted those shots. He just moved, kicking the dead man away and scooping up a rifle. Hunkered behind the bike, he couldn't stand to fire with the constant stream of lethal fire above his head, and for the first time that day he froze.

He reached for his belt, but there were no more grenades. He sighed and blindly fired the rifle over the top of the bike, but he knew that he wasn't likely to hit anything like that.

Then the elevator pinged again, and the shooting paused. At once he swung up, took aim, and squeezed off six lethally accurate shots, mowing down two of the Vulkars to his right before they could react. As the attention returned to him, the doors opened, and Mission swung out, opening fire in an instant. With their attention suddenly split, Asan picked off the last man on the right and then there were only two barricades left.

"Cover!" Asan bellowed, suppressing the Vulkars briefly as Mission sprinted the distance. One of them rose to take potshots and took a bolt between the eyes, smoldering offal blowing out of the back of his skull as his body toppled. The others stayed down.

Asan glanced up and caught the tail end of an interaction between the officers. One of them, a human woman, was speaking animatedly, but the other had his arms crossed over his chest and shook his head.

Asan glanced back and met Mission's eyes. With his shield humming again, he hefted his sword and she nodded, unleashing hell with her blaster as he vaulted the swoop bike and took four loping steps to cross the distance. One of the Vulkars must have heard his approach because he swung up and a blaster shot pinged off the blue haze of the energy shield. There was a moment of mortal recognition in the ganger's eyes before his head was cleaved from his shoulders and a fount of blood splattered across his comrade, who barked a scream and fell on his back.

Fire from the next bike forced Asan down, but he grabbed the scrambling Vulkar by the neck of his armor and pinned him to the deck with his sword, wrenching the blade in visceral satisfaction before he shook his head and exchanged the blade for a blaster. He waited for Mission's distinctive weapon to offer its report before he stood, walking as he fired. His shield shorted the moment his blaster barked its first shot, but the Vulkars weren't watching. Then they were dead, and silence reigned in the hangar.

That is, until a voice rang out. "Most impressive. I don't think I've ever seen a Bek as competent as this, no matter how much they like to brag. Have you, Kara?"

"No," the woman's dry response followed. Asan sighed and turned, looking up at the two Vulkar officers on the raised platform.

"So, a mercenary then. I wonder what they've offered you," the twi'lek mused. "I assure you the Vulkars can do better."

Asan swung his gaze around the carnage. "You really are a heartless creature," he scoffed. "I've just killed your men."

"And it was magnificent," the man agreed. "You might call me a collector of dangerous things. Kara is the crown jewel of my retinue, but oh! the things I've seen today. I think this man might give you a run for your money, dearest."

Mission had tentatively approached. "Give us the prototype accelerator and we'll walk away," she called.

"Was I talking to you?" the man sneered. "Be silent, child."

"I think I've heard enough out of you," Asan waved his hand. "I don't take contracts from wannabe warlords on backwater dumps like Taris."

"Yet you work for Gadon Thek," the twi'lek mused. "Ah, no matter. Kara will take care of you. It is such a shame…"

Asan scoffed as the woman jumped down from the platform and drew a vibrosword. She was tall, but not as tall as him, not as strong. She moved with a dancer's grace, a predator's gait. Her eyes were locked on his own, but he was not intimidated. A part of him admired her, desired her, and even as he drew his own weapon there was a small smile on his face. A strange delight was growing in him as she approached, and she must have seen his anticipation, for she slowed her advance, recognizing a fellow hunter in the man before her.

"We'll take her together," Mission whispered.

"No," Asan replied, glancing over his shoulder at the young woman. "Watch that snake, don't let him interfere."

Mission bit her lip but shrugged, and Asan rolled his shoulders, stepping away from her to engage Kara. The woman was wearing a high-end battle-suit, flexible and tough, much better than the rags he had scrounged up. Her weapon had a green tint in the blade, which marked a modified hilt. Probably a power cell and a venomous edge. At her temple, an implant glinted in the overhead light. Asan figured it for an adrenaline booster or a reflex package.

Their dance began with a simple game of footwork. He had the advantage of reach and, faced with a skilled opponent, he put it to use, managing the space between them deftly so that it would take two steps or a large lunge on her part to reach him, but only a single motion on his own. Recognizing this, she was forced to step away, reset the distance, and engage again, setting a new tempo. She moved quickly, adjusting the angle of her blade to cover his line of probable attack. It was textbook swordsmanship.

He struck first with a high lunge, extending his arm and twisting his blade around her parry. She punched the hilt of her sword away from her body, barely deflecting the seeking point of his blade, then countered with a slash from her extended wrist. Asan followed her sword blade up without losing contact, buffed it away and cut low. She jumped up and away, driving her sword down in a thrust that would have taken the back of his neck if he had not circled his sword up into a high guard, catching her weapon again with a dull rasp.

In the bind, he turned her sword and scraped into a thrust. She turned her wrist over, caught his weapon on her guard, and pressed close. Asan took hold of her wrist with his left hand and yanked her around, upsetting her perfect balance. Then he threw an elbow into the side of her head, directly on her implant, where the skull was slightly weakened. Her head snapped back with the force and she staggered two steps. He followed, slashing down over his right shoulder. She blocked, barely, countered into a lunge that he slapped away with his hand.

He drove the hilt of his vibrosword into her jaw, felt teeth and bone give way, and kicked her away. She rolled for about a meter and jumped up, spitting blood. Then she came back, attacking high, aiming for his face. He didn't even move to block, spotting the feint, and deflected the true blow to his chest, letting her momentum bring her closer. She stopped just shy of three feet, still carrying forward, left hand flashing now with a glint of steel, but he caught her wrist before the dagger could strike true. Swinging around, he laughed and kicked her knee out from beneath her, tossing her out onto the floor in front of him, drawing her out with a twist of his hips. She cried out as her shoulder bent uncomfortably and her back arched up, her face turned away.

"Come on now," he purred, still holding her wrist. His boot came down on the back of her shoulder and she grunted as he pressed down. "Is that all?"

With a roar she wrenched her arm down, cracking the shoulder out of joint, but giving her the room required to roll onto her back, sword lancing up. Asan released her arm and jumped back, but the blade skittered across his chest, cutting through his flimsy armor and scratching him in a shallow cut over his sternum. His eyes flashed, and he snarled as the pain crashed down his spine, and Kara laughed.

"All fun and games," she cackled. "Until someone gets hurt!"

"Get up!" he roared, leveling his blade at her chest. The woman rose, left arm held gingerly across her stomach. But she fell into her stance, held her weapon ready.

This time there was no footwork. Just an overwhelming assault as he walked forward steadily, attacking in a downward slash that rattled her entire arm and shoulders, followed by a thrust that forced her to spin to the side. He pressed, deflecting her counter, blades skittering together, and the point of her poisoned sword came within inches of his face before he pushed it away, twisted her wrist, and disarmed her with a flourish. The vibrosword tumbled away, still shining in the hangar's light.

Kara's eyes were closed the moment his weapon buried itself in her chest, piercing her expensive armor like it was nothing, crunching through her sternum, clipping her heart and forcing its way through her left lung. Asan gripped her shoulder, still walking forward when her eyes snapped open and she looked into his eyes again, like she had done at the beginning. His blow carried them another two steps before she staggered, and he carried her to the floor.

"Oh!" she whimpered, a grimace of fear and pain on her face.

"Shh," Asan breathed. A sequence of blaster shots rang out behind him, but he didn't look away from her face. Her right hand gripped his left, then pushed against his shoulder before settling in a weak scrape across his cheek.

Her lips parted but there was no air. Her dark eyes were bright with life and terror…then her back arched and she laid still. Asan shuddered with a sudden chill, breathed a sigh, and stood up, pulling his blade free and eying the shining crimson blade.

Mission was standing over the twi'lek's motionless body at the base of the platform.

"He was going to shoot you," she whispered.

Asan walked slowly towards her, feeling a strange chill on his skin. "It's okay," he answered, and Mission looked up at him, lips parted, face flushed.

"I…I almost didn't see him. I was watching you fight," she confessed in a rush. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd let him shoot you in the back!"

"Hey, that didn't happen," Asan soothed at once. "Let's get this damned swoop part and get out of here."

Mission nodded, biting her lip. "That…it looked personal, that fight. Did you know her?"

"What?" Asan blinked. "No, of course not. I just…I respected her talent."

"It was beautiful," Mission exclaimed. "Almost like a dance. Do you think…do you think you could teach me?"

"Sure, I guess," Asan shrugged, walking down one of the corridors. "It's really not a game, though. I hope you saw that, as well."

Mission shuddered. "I mean…she's dead."

"Yes…yes she is," Asan agreed softly. "Now what does this damn thing look like?"


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"You're back," Carth drawled, wincing as he sat up. Asan staggered over to the cot next to the Republic officer and shrugged off the combat suit he was wearing, wincing as it pulled at his injuries. He'd acquired a good deal of cuts and bruises, mostly from his melee with the gamorreans. The worst of the bunch was the pale, sickly black scratch that Kara's poisoned vibrosword had given him. The weapon responsible was gleaming at his hip. "By the stars, look at you! What, did you let a butcher at you with a cleaver?"

"Pretty much," Asan winced, easing himself down. "You got that first aid?"

"What, you're gonna stitch yourself up?"

Asan laughed. "Nope." He jerked his head towards the door just as Mission rushed inside, followed by the older twi'lek woman, Zaerdra, who was walking at a more sedate pace with a long-suffering look on her face. "The newest member of my mercenary company is going to help me."

"What, the teenage girl?" Carth snorted.

Mission stopped and put her hands on her hips. "Hey, I'm no kid, you old geezer!" she barked. "I turned nineteen two months ago."

"Still teens as far as I can tell," Carth drawled.

"What's this about a mercenary company?" Zaerdra hissed.

Mission turned towards her with a wide smile. "Zaalbar gave a life-debt when Asan saved him in the undercity, so he's stuck with us," she replied. "You should have seen him fight, Zaerdra! I swear there isn't anyone on Taris that could take him! We…we blasted right through that base like it was nothing…" she trailed off as she finally saw Asan sitting shirtless on the cot, leaning back on his arms and controlling his breathing. "Oh my stars! Are you alright?"

"I'd be better if you'd get over here and help," Asan growled.

"Mission doesn't know anything about first aid…" Zaerdra spoke up.

"That's not true!" Mission interrupted at once, rushing forward. "I…uh, Calista showed me a few things."

"Oh yeah?" Zaerdra muttered. "When was this?"

Mission stroked a head-tail nervously. "Four years ago…"

"It doesn't matter!" Asan exclaimed. "You gotta learn sometime; I just need extra hands right now. there's some antidote in that box, a cure-all, draw the big syringe and hand it to me."

"Antidote…" Mission repeated, flipping open the box. "It's green?"

"Yeah," he answered curtly.

"How'd you get poisoned?" Carth muttered. His eyes raked over the swords and rifles. "Where'd you get all this fancy gear?"

"Took it," Asan bit out, accepting the syringe.

The needle was about as long as his middle finger, and he drove it into his thigh without a sound. Mission winced and looked away, even as Asan sagged and pulled the needle free with a jerk of his wrist. Sweat broke out all over his body and he shuddered violently as his heart forced the all-cure through his veins. That antidote was pretty widely circulated in first-aid, and it was effective against most common weaponizable toxins. Not all, but most. If it didn't work, then he was probably going to suffer through several long days of fever and nausea, perhaps a severe skin rash or necrosis. Possibly death, depending on the toxin, but he didn't figure that the Black Vulkars were sharp enough to get their hands on something as rare as that, even one like Kara.

"Kolto next," he sighed, opening his eyes when the effects of the antidote weren't so overpowering. Mission nodded and pulled a blueish clear tube out of the pack, as well as two long syringes. "For cuts like these I'll use paste, got it? If I'd been shot, I would need the needles to stop internal bleeding and inflammation."

"Okay," Mission chirped, watching intently as he gathered the kolto jelly on his fingers and found one of the deeper gashes.

"You have to get this shit in there," he emphasized, digging his fingers into the cut and smearing the kolto across. Carth hissed and looked away.

"God _dammit_!" he exclaimed. "For pity's sake, call a medic over here."

Asan blinked stars from his vision and shook his head. "What? These cuts are nothing. Flesh wounds."

"Yeah, right," the soldier scoffed. "It looks like you took an axe across your back."

"Really?" Asan twisted his shoulders, and Mission gasped.

"Holy bantha poodoo!" she covered her mouth with both hands. "How the hell did you fight through a whole vulkar base with _that?_ "

"I have to admit I was surprised you came back with the prototype," Zaerdra mused. "The Beks have been trying to break that outpost for weeks."

Asan glared at her. "So, it was a suicide mission?"

"The Beks can't afford to help every beggar that comes past our door. We had to know how far you were willing to go to fulfill a bargain," Zaerdra explained with a shrug. "We fully expected you to report back on the base's defenses, maybe request some help once you arrived."

"Mission never indicated that was the case," Asan hissed. "And how were we supposed to contact you? We could have both been killed. She's one of your own, isn't she?"

"Apparently not anymore," Zaerdra remarked dryly, glancing sharply at the younger twi'lek. "I thought she was a part of your crew?"

"That's cold," Mission snapped. "After all these years, this is how you treat me? It'd be nice to get a briefing every now and again, you know, so I don't end up walking through another rancor's nest without backup."

"Look, can we take care of my open wounds before you start bickering?" Asan growled across the brewing argument, feeling something like hatred stirring in his gut and wishing to forget about the Beks entirely. There was no better way to distract him than pain.

"You're gonna look like a patchwork doll if you let her stitch you up," Carth mused from the side. Asan glared over his shoulder.

"You mean I'm gonna look like you?" he retorted. The soldier choked a laugh and waved his hand dismissively.

Mission leaned into his view. "Sorry, sorry, what do you need?"

"You saw me do it. Get some of that kolto on your hands and treat the gash. I'll do the front while you work up your nerve," Asan explained gruffly, taking the tube again and helping himself to a liberal dollop of kolto. Then he offered it to Mission, who swallowed thickly.

The rest of the cuts he'd received were on his arms or shoulders, and were very shallow. The bruises would smart in the morning, but they wouldn't impede motion. Whatever was on his back must not have been too bad or he wouldn't have made it for so long without noticing, especially now that the adrenaline was easing off. There was a tightness in his shoulder-blades, but the muscles must not have been cut through completely or he'd have trouble rolling his shoulders.

Zaerdra snorted and walked away, while Mission sat still as a statue with kolto on her hands, looking paler blue than usual. "Well?" Asan urged, turning to present his back more fully.

"I don't want to hurt you…"

"Mission, I've already got a cut across my back," Asan exclaimed. "What's the worst that could—AAAH, unholy son of a Sith, _what the kriff_!?"

"Sorry!" Mission squeaked, pressing her hand against his back. It was extremely cold against his skin, but the worst was the burning, icy numbness that stretched across his shoulder-blades. Asan set his jaw and shuddered visibly while she swiftly pressed her hand across his back, yanking it away like she'd burnt herself on his skin. "Sorry, sorry! Are you okay?"

"Yes," he ground out. "A little warning next time?"

"Oh…yeah," Mission mumbled. "So…is that it?"

"Carth?"

"You need stitches," the soldier answered, a little too gleeful.

"Damn it all," Asan sighed. "How's your arm, Carth? Mission's hands will be shaking…"

"I can do it," the man replied after a moment, sounding somewhat disappointed. Mission stood and walked around to sit at Asan's front while Carth gingerly inched closer, putting a hand over Asan's shoulder to hold him still a moment before rummaging in the first aid kit.

They sat in silence for a moment before Asan winced at the bite of the needle. Mission hugged herself round the middle and stared off at nothing, but Asan saw that she was trembling. Slowly he reached out and brushed her shoulder. "Hey."

"Huh?" she started. "Oh…sorry. I was just, um...thinking."

Asan smiled darkly. "Yeah. Long day, huh?"

Her eyes glinted in the low light and she looked away from his seeking eyes. "I…I don't know how you do it. You don't seem…well none of what happened bothered you at all, did it?"

"What's on your mind, specifically?"

"Those women...and everything I guess. Slavers..." Mission breathed. Carth paused in his work, and Asan could tell that his ears had perked at her words. "I just…how could we…how could you have…"

"Killed them," Asan finished, nodding slowly.

"Yeah, that," Mission sighed, hugging herself again.

Asan watched her features closely. "The vulkars didn't bother you?"

She blinked, surprised. "Of course! I mean…a person is a person. But they were fighting back."

"Hm," he hummed. "I can't say anything that will make it alright, Mission."

The girl leaned closer, anxious. "Aren't you going to try and convince me that there wasn't a choice? That it would have been worse to leave them? At least offer reasonable doubt?"

"I could try," Asan answered quietly, closing his eyes and focusing on the pain of the needle. "But there _was_ a choice, in the end. We could have tried to free them, tried to escort them back. There was no guarantee that the rakghouls would come, even in a group as large as eight or nine. I decided that the risk was too high. Some of them were bleeding already, though the stench of the sewer might have covered their scent. I killed them because I didn't want to take that risk. Because I didn't value them as much as our mission."

"How do you live with that?" Mission breathed, eyes searching, almost desperate. The young girls' hopeful world had cracks in its foundation, placed there by the dark brutalities of life in the Lower City. But now those cracks were widening, first because of the gamorrean slavers, then because of the fight in the Vulkar base. Finally, the betrayal of Zaerdra, a woman that Asan sensed was a role-model for Mission…that revelation had not yet sunk in, but he knew that it would within the next day.

"Have you ever really watched the rakghoul, Mission?" Asan asked slowly. "I mean have you looked for the scraps of a soul in them? It's there, you know, tatters of it anyway. One of the first things I saw in the Undercity was a human turning to a rakghoul before my eyes. There was a beast and it just…crushed his head like a melon, scattered his brains in the dust, but the man stood up moments later, disfigured beyond recognition, already ravenous. His eyes...they blazed gold. And I...I should remember why that's significant, but I don't, not anymore."

Mission was leaning away from him now, horror written on her face.

"I couldn't remember why the rakghoul stood out in my mind, why they were significant. When we came across the gamorreans, and the women…that was when it started to become clear. We all have a bit of the rakghoul in us, I think. Not literally, of course, but that savagery is there, the deep-seated call to selfish power ad bloodshed. Coming to accept that part of myself has brought pace," Asan concluded. "I...I don't have to fight myself anymore, Mission. I don't have to wonder about right or wrong or guilt. I'm free."

Mission's eyes were wet. "That's horrible," her voice broke, and she looked away from him. Carth gingerly began stitching away again, pointedly silent. "I…I don't think I could live like that, Asan. I don't think you should either."

"It's alright," he assured her. "Try not to think about it."

Mission stood up and backpedaled away from him. "I'm going to find Zaalbar," she whispered, rushing out the door. Asan closed his eyes and breathed through his nose.

"That was a hard thing," Carth murmured.

"It's a tough world," Asan replied.

The soldier scoffed. "I won't dispute that. But you don't have to go making it worse by talking about mankind's inherent savagery to a teenager. And it's pretty kriffed to just accept it like it's nothing, you realize that?"

"So I ought to just suffer in guilt my whole life, for no other reason than to satisfy some stranger's standard for morality?" Asan asked rhetorically, shaking his head. "That's no way to live."

"It's better to recognize evil for what it is, rather than dressing it up and pretending," Carth retorted.

"So the choice is between living as a hypocrite, knowing that what I do is evil and doing it anyway, or as a wicked man," Asan concluded. "That doesn't make the choices any easier, not for me, not for Mission. And not for you. She'll come face to face with it eventually. Especially if she chooses to follow me around, fighting the Sith. Besides I didn't see you chipping in with wisdom."

Carth sighed. "I guess you aren't wrong about that. That girl looks up to you, for some reason and I don't know her from a hole in the wall. You've only just met what eight hours ago…"

"We shed blood together," Asan explained with a shrug. Carth hissed at him to hold still as he continued. "There's a bond in that. Besides, we make a good team."

"You're too old for her, mad dog," Carth snarked, but the attempt at levity was weak.

"Oh yeah?" Asan grinned nevertheless. "She called _you_ the geezer, as I remember it. What are you, her father?"

"Hmph. I'm done here," Carth scooted away, maneuvering the tube in his chest as he leaned back, pale in the face.

"How's the pain?"

"It's bad," Carth answered shortly. "The Beks had something for it, but it's shit."

"What can you expect from a paramilitary gang?" Asan mused. "The Vulkars were even worse. Just damn kids playing around with guns…"

"Yeah?" Carth scoffed. "Cut you up pretty good, as far as I can tell."

"Most of that was from gamorrean axes. Tough bastards, those," Asan grunted. "But that woman…a mercenary. She gave me that poisoned cut when I got sloppy. Started playing with my food…"

"You're deranged," Carth mumbled, titling his head back.

"We make an odd pair," Asan agreed. "But what have you done for me lately, you old cripple? Laying about while I get all the work done around here…"

"I cut you a paycheck, you great lump," Carth scoffed. "But it's damn good work you've done so far. I'll have to recommend you for a shiny medal when this shit is over."

"Assuming we're alive," Asan sighed, adjusting his seat. "Why'd you want to give me a medal for evil, as you put it?"

"Well, you get results, that's for damn sure," Carth sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "In war matters of morality come second to results, I'm afraid. Why'd you take the deal with Gadon, anyway? Nobody told me anything about the details, just that you'd come to an arrangement."

"The Vulkars cleaned out the downed escape pods from the Endar Spire," Asan explained. "They're putting up the Republic officers they captured as the prize for the upcoming swoop races. With the part that I retrieved for them, the Beks should have no problem taking first. Gadon promised to release the officers in return for my help."

"Ah," Carth grunted. "Thanks for doing that then. It sounds like you had some kind of adventure."

Asan shrugged and laid back, staring at the ceiling. "Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime."

"Don't know it I want to hear it, given how Mission's taking it. I wish I hadn't got myself shot. Damn rookie mistake."

"Unlucky, more like," Asan muttered. "I'm going to try and catch a few Z's. Take a look at that tube of yours in a few hours."

Carth grunted an acknowledgment and let the mercenary lay in silence.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

He stared down at the planet below him, turning without a care in the world, delightfully green and serene, a jewel hung in the void. Dark power crawled in his veins, just beneath the skin, and his eyes flared gold as his thoughts turned toward events taking place far below him, on the surface of that world. Where Bastila Shan was hidden, lurking like a rat in the depths of a rotting city, a coward among cowards.

But there was something more elusive than the Jedi Padawan lurking there. The Force was trembling with anticipation of something both great and terrible. Malak had never been as keen in predicting the future as his old friend, master, and enemy, but he didn't lack for raw Force potential, and even he could tell that the galaxy was now poised on a precipice; it was rushing up to a shatter-point, a moment that would define the era, but blissfully ignorant. The war burned across the galaxy, a distraction, a symptom of some deeper struggle, but Malak couldn't imagine what the shadows might hold. What vexed him was the mystery, just as it had been with the Sith. What could be so powerful on Taris that it could whip the Force into such a frenzy?

The last time he had felt something like this was during the war in the unknown regions, standing with Revan against the ancient Sith. He still remembered looking down into the eyes of a Sith acolyte, impaled on his lightsaber, clawing at the plasma and holding onto life through sheer rage alone, darkly golden irises burning with an inhuman hatred that seemed to crawl up out of the darkest pits of the Force itself. He remembered after months and months of constant struggle looking at Revan and seeing the same shadows playing in his sunken eye sockets, the lines etched in his pale skin.

He remembered how it had felt like they were falling further and further into an instinctive rhythm, out of the disciplined doctrine of a Jedi and into a more primal, savage routine. There were fewer thoughts and more action, less talk, and less consideration. But somehow, they were driven forward, bound together in that final cascade into madness, a harrowing descent. And finally, they had landed, broken vessels of men, ruined, burnt-out husks at the feet of a throne, looking up at a god.

After that things had never been the same. It was painful for Malak to even remember, but for the first time in years he dredged these old memories up and looked them squarely in the eyes. He thought of the whispered lectures Revan had shared with him…the furious rage of his master, so impenetrable and incomprehensible…seeming so strange to him then, so much unlike the man that he'd once been, the Jedi Knight Tavon. Those lectures had swiftly become chains holding him down, binding his power and strength.

Now that Revan was gone he'd reached the heights of dizzying power more swiftly than ever before, blazing like a star in the Force, holding entire worlds in the palm of his hand. But there remained a hollow ache that just wouldn't fade, nothing like the triumph that he had expected. A doubt would not leave him, that perhaps he'd given up something important in this pursuit of power, that he'd sacrificed something integral to the man he'd been, but he couldn't remember what he'd lost.

And in moments like this Malak wished that Revan was here to tell him how the Force was moving, what these soft murmurs could possibly mean. He wanted his old friend to tell him what he was missing, what should have been so obvious, like he had always done before...before their friendship had been warped and perverted into enmity.

The moment of weakness would intensify his hatred, when he came to his senses again. But the pain was deep enough to hold him suspended there in remorse, for just a moment, a place between hate and sorrow.

"My Lord," Saul Karath's voice interrupted the Dark Lord's musings, shocked him out of his self-pity, and he glanced over his shoulder sharply.

Malak detested the insignificant insect behind him. Karath's lack of loyalty was the only reason that Malak had managed to open fire on Revan's flagship without reprisal from the rest of the fleet, and Malak knew that Karath's oaths to him were worth less than the air it had taken to speak them. The man was a coward pure and simple, and he only supported Malak because he was afraid of him. "Speak, Admiral."

Malak's voice rumbled out from the synthesizer in his metal jaw, a grating and uncomfortable sound that seemed to put a pause to the motion of the bridge, but only for a moment. The officers there hurried back to action lest they find themselves noticed by their Dark Lord. Their thoughts amused him, whispers of busy-bodies striving to gain the notice of their superiors but not the pale gaze of their overlord.

"The garrison on the surface has crushed whatever remained of the Republic resistance on Taris," the Admiral reported. "It seems that the majority of the escape pods from the Endar Spire crashed into the Undercity. The Jedi, Bastila Shan, must have been among them."

"We knew as much before occupying the planet," Malak ground out. "What more have you to tell me?"

"Our incursions to the surface have resulted I heavy casualties. The local infestation of rakghoul have made progress difficult. However, several Lower City gangs recovered Republic officers and are offering them up as slaves. One gang in particular, the Black Vulkars, announced that they have three Republic officers enslaved and are putting them up as a prize for the annual swoop races."

Malak would have scoffed at the idea that gangs could accomplish what his soldiers could not, but it made only too much sense. The competition in the Undercity between the Sith, the Exchange, and the gangs would have made it difficult to reach the Undercity, and the rakghouls were an altogether different foe than his soldiers had ever faced. "Gatix and Lussus will lead the raid of these swoop races and recover the officers," Malak decided firmly. "Inform them of the task and provide whatever resources they require."

Saul Karath shuddered, for he recognized that the only names that Darth Malak would have known so easily were the most experienced of the Dark Jedi, those few that had fought with them in the Unknown Regions and had survived. The ones that had taken up leadership positions among the fledgling Sith order. These most dangerous men were best kept at a distance except when contact was unavoidable, and the average soldier didn't dare to approach or fraternize with them. But they would be more than capable of dealing with a Jedi padawan, if Bastila was, indeed, a slave of the Vulkars.

The idea that Bastila Shan would be among the slaves taken by gangbangers was patently ridiculous. If the Jedi was even half-aware when she was taken, then a hundred of them might have attempted to capture her and failed. She might have been unconscious, but it was unlikely that anyone on Taris had access to the necessary equipment to suppress the Force-sensitive woman. But..any opportunity to interrogate a Republic officer brought them closer to learning the purpose of the Endar Spire's strange appearance in border territories. And there was always a chance she might be there, no matter how slim.

"I trust that you will be capable of that simple task," Darth Malak finished with barely disguised scorn. "You are dismissed, admiral."

Saul Karath bowed low and walked back across the raised catwalk, out of the bridge, finally releasing a breath that he hadn't intentionally been holding.

Malak felt a whisper of the Dark Side again, but it was different than what he had become used to over the recent years. It was a distant thing, and it echoed across his mind and taunted him like he was a student once again. His breath caught and a flame of rage kindled in his chest, snapping out, eyes burning orange. _He_ was master, now, and he reached for that whispering thing, grasped for its roots, but it slipped through his fingers like water. Then he looked out to the void and it bled away completely, leaving a dull fatigue in its wake, like an old scar, and Malak closed his eyes and let his thoughts wander. But strangely enough, his mind lingered far below, somewhere on the surface of the world, where the Force had just blossomed, like water from behind a dam.

* * *

It was the damn collar...that was all. That was what Bastila told herself as she felt the icy dread clawing at her, the unmistakable mark of the Dark Side. It was growing worse, and she didn't know how long she had been locked up, forced to her knees with her ankles fastened to the durasteel plating of the force-cage, hearing the numbing buzz of the energy field at the edge of her perception. Occasionally she would awaken and glance up, drink in her surroundings, such as they were, but those moments were few and far between. Her mind was driven again to its aimless dreamscape, the frenetic terrors and nightmarish hallucinations that the collar inspired. It was a rare design, this thing around her neck.

The Force could not be cut off by technology, at least as far as she knew. But to subdue Jedi there were methods that could scatter their concentration, drive them to unconsciousness, or force them into lethargy so deep that they could not access the Force.

Bastila didn't know how she had ended up in the cage. Only that she was there. She didn't know who had taken her captive, only that it was not the Sith. They had no reason to fear the Jedi, no use for the collars, not with the Force as their ally. And it _was_ their ally—or perhaps their master—this she had seen with her own eyes.

She was bent at the waist, hands on the back of her head, focusing on her breathing, dispelling the hallucinations and false terror through sheer willpower, when she fell into dreams again. But this time it was different. She was pulled, almost violently, with a feeling like spinning, and then there was nothing but the void. It was different than the collar-induced dreams, where bright colors and frenetic distractions reigned. Bastila had experienced this kind of dream before, on the Endar Spire.

She knew that she was sharing a dream with Asan. Or Revan, Tavon, whatever name he currently held. But she had to watch her thoughts here; there was no telling how much he could glean from her mind across their bond. Bastila breathed in the dreamscape, reached out with the Force and found it solid, unshakable. She was firmly asleep now, out of the collar's influence.

This was precisely what she needed to break its hold. But the bond could only be this strong if Asan was nearby and asleep. Or, worse, aware of the connection and reaching through it, and if that was the case, if he had remembered, then there were worse things to fear than the collar.

"Who are you?" a voice echoed, and Bastila turned to face it, expecting Asan's dream-self. But it was not.

She would recognize that face anywhere, a man forgotten, features clean and young, vibrant. This was Alek, the Jedi that had Revan's staunchest ally and friend throughout the Mandalorian Wars. This is one of the men that she had looked up to as a young Jedi, one of the paragons of the order.

One of their greatest failures. A traitor and a Sith. The current Dark Lord.

Her breath caught in her throat as another figure approached, this one more terrible, a cloaked and hooded thing. Darth Revan, the Jedi fallen, the greatest of his generation and the most fearsome.

And then Asan himself, impossibly, came easing out of the shadows, drawn to the meeting of minds like a moth to the flame. He looked first at the hooded man, a flash of trepidation and recognition in his eyes, like a man looking at a frightful stranger, then to Alek, and at last to Bastila.

"Jedi," he declared, outwardly confident but plainly terrified. "Are you reaching out to me in my dreams now?"

"Help me," Bastila breathed. "You must help me."

"What do you think I've been trying to do for the last week, Bastila?" Asan replied acerbically.

"Bastila?" Alek repeated, and his eyes glowed briefly golden. The Jedi's heart seized in her chest, realizing the moment that he spoke that this was not a memory of the man, but the very man himself. He must have sensed the old Force bond from orbit, drawn to the surface in meditation...but he _could_ not know the significance of the bond, or even its true nature. Everything that they had fought for would be for nothing!

"And there is Revan, or a memory of him," Alek continued, gesturing to the hooded man, jaw tightening. "Are you really there, my old master? Or is it only Bastila's dream? Has she conjured a terrible falsehood to frighten this stranger?"

"Revan is dead," Bastila declared tremulously.

Asan was watching this with narrowed eyes. "Who are you?" he asked Alek sharply.

"The better question is: who are you?" Alek returned at once. "Let me see your face more clearly. Are you another Jedi? How is it that you can share in Bastila's dream?"

"You are a fool, Malak," the masked Revan suddenly spoke, and his voice echoed through the Void.

The young man's features shifted subtly, growing older, scarred, paler. His eyes grew darker, and what was left of his hair receded until he was bald. Lines were etched in his face as though they had been cut from stone, chiseled before their very eyes. "A fool? I have grown more powerful than you ever were!"

"You have only _fallen further,_ " Darth Revan replied darkly. "You've destroyed us both in your madness. You have taken our dreams and shattered them, like you have shattered yourself."

"What are you talking about? More riddles and lies!" Malak roared, and suddenly he was the Dark Lord, with his mechanical jaw and red cloaks, eyes blazing and skin pale. His veins stood out starkly in black. "All you ever knew how to do was shackle me, Revan! You were holding yourself back from your power, weakening us. You were a coward. You never had the guts to do what was necessary!"

"Necessary for what? No, you are wrong. You have always been wrong about the Dark," Revan replied calmly and Bastila fought to interrupt but found her voice had been silenced. Even Asan, who by all rights should have ownership of the dream, was frozen and silent. This was between this remnant of Revan and his student now. "Look at yourself. Look at _me_. Don't you remember how I admitted that I was failing, before the end? Don't you remember how I apologized for my weakness, met only by your scorn? Don't you remember how we despised the Sith, Alek, just like you despised me? We looked at them and pitied them for their lack of control, for being slaves. We were so afraid of the Dark. We shuddered in the darkest night and thought of how we were succumbing to its lies. Didn't you understand anything that I taught you about the Sith, about how they struggle for freedom but only ever tighten their chains?

Don't you _remember_ the reasons that we brought this fleet back to the Republic? We came to make them strong and not to destroy them! We wanted to raise them up to do what we had failed to do! Our dream was for a generation so cnfident and strong, righteous and powerful, that the Sith would cower at the sight of them, that the Dark would cower before them! But you have inflicted such _scars,_ perpetrated such massacres, poisoned so many knights, that what remains is a broken, fatherless generation. That will be your legacy, oh great Lord. That will be _our_ legacy, a history of treachery and of death."

Malak looked stricken, and he staggered away from the shade of Revan, but the former Dark Lord did not relent.

"You must have forgotten all the sacrifices we made! You should still remember _who you are!_ If I had seen how deep it had taken you, Alek, and if I had known how to save myself, I would have _helped_ you, but you hid yourself from me. You betrayed me like we betrayed the Republic. Now I am dead, or dying, at least. But you can still _remember._ You have the strength that I did not have. _I believe in the man that I knew,_ _Alek_ _._ "

"You're LYING to me," Malak wheezed, faint. But his voice grew stronger with his growing rage. "If you were dead than you would not be speaking to me now. The Jedi have conjured this...this foul apparition to shake my resolve. They are poisoning your memory against me!"

"No, Alek," Revan boomed, and there was no mistaking the power in his voice. This was the man that had commanded the galaxy's respect and fear, the man that had brought whole nations up from their knees, who had united whole sectors under his banner. This was a Lord, undeniable. "You have felt it, the Force. You have heard how it screams in agony over what has been done to me. I am fading. All that I have built is left to you, my friend, my brother. Don't forget the things that we fought for. Don't let the Dark take you as it has taken me.

Perhaps the struggle against the Dark is futile, perhaps we are all doomed inevitably to corruption and death, but _do not falter_ while you yet draw breath. Do not go quietly into perversion, into madness. As Sith, you are master of yourself, master of the Force, master of your ambition. _That_ is true power, Malak, not this slavery to the whims of the Dark Side of the Force."

"Begone!" Malak roared, shaken to his foundation. "Bastila, I will _hunt_ you down for this slight! For deceiving me! How dare you sully my master's memory like this? And _you,_ stranger _…"_

Asan was watching him, face lifted up to some unseen light and Malak staggered as if he had been struck when their eyes met. The Dark Lord looked like someone had gutted him upon a lightsaber, all the trappings of the Dark falling away and leaving the broken young man that he might have been, whole in body but shattered in mind. His mouth hung open, and though his skin had no scars, there was such agony in his eyes that it broke Bastila's heart to watch.

But worse, Alek recognized his old friend, his brother, his master.

"NO!" Bastila shrieked, breaking from the dream and shattering the void with her exclamation. Revan could not discover his identity now, not yet, not when she was too weak to fight him…

"It can't be true..." Alek was on his knees. "It's impossible!"

Asan looked confusedly from him to the fading shade of the Sith Lord Revan, then at last to Bastila. "We're coming for you, Bastila," he hissed. "You have some explaining to do, I think."

 _He can't possibly have figured it out...or perhaps it was all too obvious...the Jedi couldn't have destroyed his memories so_ _utterly_ _that he would not recognize his own voice, even_ _from_ _under a mask. But how could Revan have preserved enough of his mind to offer that message to Malak?_ _And what could he have meant?_

But the dream was ending, tearing itself to ribbons around them, and Bastila had no chance to ponder it. Again, the collar burst into her mind, scattering her thoughts like broken glass, peeling away her defenses, leaving her bare to the tumultuous, heaving Force, which was howling in discordant song. Suddenly Bastila was screaming with it, striking a hollow note that seemed to tear itself from her throat with the last of her energy, leaving her collapsed upon the floor of her cell, breathless and shaking.

And the Dark Side purred beneath it all, reverberating in the atmosphere of Taris, curling around the world like a great serpent. Children across the planet rushed to their parents' arms in fear, the cloying shadows pressed nearer to the lights, and an unnatural silence settled over the streets unlike anything that had come before. But Bastila could do nothing. She strained against her chains and felt tears of frustration burn in her eyes, but then that too was drowned by the collar's incessant cacophony and her cage was dragged away by her captors.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

His hands were shaking, and his darkly glittering eyes lanced across the airspeeders racing at his sides. They were not soldiers, barely men, but they had weapons and would provide a distraction, and that was what they would need when they arrived. Carth had expressed his doubts that the races would turn to battle, but Asan wasn't fooled like Mission was. The Republic officer saw the writing on the wall. It was going to be a slaughter.

The Sith had caught wind of the Republic officers at the race. The Beks had observed them positioning men in the Lower City, close enough to storm the swoop platforms. And with his dream the night before, Asan had no doubt that Bastila was going to be present at the race. He only hoped that the Dark Lord of the Sith wasn't there, personally.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Mission said to him as the airspeeder beneath them rumbled with the turbulence of the cramped highways. Asan glanced at her and shrugged.

"Stay close to Zaalbar when we get there, I'll lead the charge," Asan ordered quietly. Carth navigated the vehicle down, a good distance away from the other parked airspeeders, in an alcove on the second floor of the attached garage. Asan turned to her when they were standing. "Let me see your armor."

Mission swung her legs out and stood up, raising her arms and turning slowly. Asan caught a loose buckle and wrenched it tight, drawing a gasp from the girl, who rubbed her chest when she came back around. "It's a bit constrictive now," she whined with a playful pout.

"It'll save your life," Asan replied with a shrug. "I'm sure your breasts will survive."

The girl huffed but there was light dancing in her eyes. She glanced at his hands and caught his fingers between her own. "You're shaking."

"We're going to be fighting," Asan offered as an explanation. Mission had seen him in the Bek base, remembered how he'd been before he had gotten into that elevator and taken the fight to their leadership on the second floor. She nodded and dropped his hand.

"Let's go. Weapons out," Asan ordered, walking ahead. Carth snorted, but drew his blaster. The quiet hum of its power cell joined the distant rumble of powerful engines.

The soldier glanced at her worriedly, lips pursed. "You'll do alright kid. Just do what he says," he offered.

"I thought you were in charge here," Mission sniped.

Carth laughed. "That was until I got myself shot," he replied dryly. "Besides, the man's a demon in a fight. I trust his instincts."

They arrived at the deck of the swoops, across the tracks from the extensive bleachers and spectator booths, and found a packed platform strewn with idling swoop bikes and milling engineers, technicians, and hired muscle. There were force cages as well, and his eyes were drawn immediately to the cage on the left, perhaps two hundred yards away, where a woman was bowed over her knees, rocking rhythmically with her head thrown back, tangled hair swinging over her shoulders.

"Bastila," Asan pointed her out to Carth, clenching his jaw. The man made as if to step forward, but Asan caught his arm. "Wait. We don't want to be the one to light this fuse. That will draw their attention to us."

"So what?"

"The Sith are coming," Asan replied softly. "It won't be long."

Carth didn't get a chance to ask him how he knew. He only got to narrow his eyes and part his lips. Just as he was about to speak a booming voice echoes across the tracks. "Welcome! Welcome!" The crowd roared its approval. "This is the eightieth annual Ignoble Classic of Taris! We've got a pack of stallions chomping at the bit for your entertainment. So let's get this show on the road!"

"There," Asan pointed across the platform where a subtle glint of metal caught his eye. Somethign knotted in his chest and he hunched his shoulders, felt a chill crawling down his back. "Let's go!"

An explosion rippled across the deck, shook the floor beneath their feet, reverberated through the stale Lower City air. For a moment there was no sound at all, a deafening silence, but then the Sith were advancing, weapons free and barking, and plasma fires burst into raging life at three impact sites around the platform. The crowd, at first assuming this was a festivity, cheered once, then screamed in horror as a blast rocked the stands and the carnage was made apparent to them. Two Sith Assault teams burst into the crowd on the opposite side of the tracks, setting up automatic weapons.

The gangs exploded into action at once, at each others throats like a pack of rabid dogs. Asan didn't duck, only activating his energy shield and striding into the chaos like he owned it, like he was untouchable. Zaalbar roared and brought his bowcaster up, the distinctive bark sounding over the cacophony of battle and knocking a man off his feet as he charged the Beks.

As opposed to the other fools, the Hidden Beks had some organization, some paltry discipline. At once they formed loose ranks, ducking into cover behind swoop bikes, crates, and the registrar's desk. Some of them overturned tables or shoved the hovering bikes into the path of the blaster fire. The other gangs, however, were nothing but disorganized mobs, pressing together like a cheese grinder, pouring blood and smoke onto the platform in a mindless, heated slaughter. The Beks carved out a corner of the platform and stood strong, content to let the others butcher each other, but Asan had to push beyond. The cages were in Vulkar hands, and when the Sith got their guns up on the other side they'd cut everyone to ribbons in a matter of minutes.

"Move!" Asan roared, picking up his pace. "They're too close to the cages!"

Carth saw what he was worried about at once. There were two Dark Jedi among the Sith battalion, with swords of crimson fire that arced through the gangs, carving a path swiftly towards the cages. Asan ran, shoulder down, shoving through the melee without stopping for anything. They burst beyond the Bek line, into the fray, but Asan barely slowed, cutting a bloody swath through the untrained masses.

When he caught attention, the bowcaster would cut the enemy down before they could open fire, and Zaalbar followed at a more sedate pace with Mission at his side, covering his blind spots. Carth was in the middle ground, inconspicuous, moving with a certainty that could only come with experience, avoiding unnecessary attention. This was a battlefield, unconventional as it was, and he was at home, keeping the mob off Asan's back.

Asan reached the cages as the Sith soldiers drove the last of the Vulkars out of their way, gunning them down as they scattered. He emerged from the throng and pierced the chest of a golden-armored man with his gleaming emerald blade, turning the dying soldier into the aim of his squad-mates, who checked their fire at once. Now this was a professional force, well-trained, and blooded in combat against the Republic. They reacted to the threat at once, falling back to safety, regrouping, pushing forward again, unstoppable.

Carth came next, while their attention was diverted, blowing red and white scraps of flesh from the skull of the nearest Sith soldier, a man unfortunate enough to be leading the push for the cages. Zaalbar caught a second man in the chest with his bowcaster, and Asan reached down to heft the limp body by the neck of his armor.

"Cover me!" he barked, hauling the man to the cage where Bastila was still rocking, insensate. He forced the corpse against the energy field with his boot and winced as the feedback of the discharge rippled over his foot. But the portable generator couldn't sustain that level of punishment for long, and the force cage opened, smoking from three places. Asan reached forward and hauled the woman up by her arm, but the chains pulled taut around her ankles.

With a snarl he ignited the red lightsaber and cut them. That was when her eyes opened and she looked into his face, unmasked terror in her expression. The glow of his blade curled around them and reflected in his eyes, but only for a moment. Then he turned away.

"Carth, get her out of here!" Asan pushed her behind him, and the soldier ducked behind a cage, Zaalbar stepping into his place. The Sith were rushing forward, seconds away from overrunning their position. Their numbers were insurmountable in this position.

Asan lobbed two grenades onto the platform to distract them, sure that the shrapnel would tear holes in their advance. There was very little cover that would stand up to a frag.

"There's Dark Jedi!" Carth barked, eyes focused on the red lightsaber in Asan's hand. He gestured to Bastila.

"I know!" Asan replied, shaking his head. "She's useless. Go! I'll be right behind you! And get that fucking collar off her!"

"I didn't peg you as a guy to throw his life away," Carth retorted as he drew up close, but he gathered the gasping, hysterical Jedi in his arms anyway.

Mission was at his side a second later. "What do we do?!"

"Go with Carth! Cover his ass!" Asan barked, resetting his energy shield and pushing up.

The Sith were here, firing in fully automatic bursts, cutting down the pressing gangs and facing them. Mission hesitated, but remembered his earlier warning and rushed after Carth, kicking a clawing, dying Vulkar away from the soldier and his precious cargo. Zaalbar offered a final significant glance and covered her retreat.

There were other Republic officers here in cages. One man and one woman. Asan recognized their uniforms, and they must have recognized his face. They didn't cry out for him, didn't beg him to save them. The man met his eyes and nodded slowly.

Asan breathed, feeling a rush rising up from somewhere deep down, and then the Sith were upon him, weapons screaming. He pushed right back, cutting through a man at the waist, piercing another through the chest, ducking beneath a spray of fire, coming up and bisecting a third from hip to shoulder. His lightsaber slid between himself and a line of fire from the right as if it had a mind of its own, and the bolts splattered around him, onto the deck or into the crowds. One of them singed his arm.

Then the Sith stopped and pulled back, called away by an unheard voice. The Dark Jedi was there, sliding out from the line of his men, letting his dark cloak slide from his arms and lay at his feet.

"Well, well, well," he declared over the din, deflecting a stray blaster shot into the deck. A wide smile was on his face, baring his teeth. "Look who it is! Lussus, get over here!"

The second materialized as if from nothing at the first Sith's shoulder. His eyes were wide, and the blaze of gold faded for just a moment, replaced with uncertainty. "It can't be…"

"Lord Malak will reward us handsomely for your demise, Revan!" the first crowed.

Asan staggered at the name, clenching his jaw as everything suddenly settled into place, became clear. His awakening on Dantooine...the flashes of someone else's life, the scars. Bastila's familiarity, and the dream that they had shared. Something crawled in the back of his mind in recognition of the name, but it died with a whimper as he raised his head to face the two men once again. There was no time to think, no time to remember.

Only battle.

"That is _Revan_ you're challenging!" the second Sith barked, but the first brandished his lightsaber, cutting him off.

"Don't be a coward! Let's go!"

And with that the battle began. The Sith moved forward in sync, brothers in arms, highly experienced and in tune with the motions of their partner. Asan met them instinctively, dividing them with his inexorable charge. His own lightsaber moved in a blur of color, skating across their own, blocking and parrying effortlessly. It was too swift for him to think, and he fell into old forgotten instincts, first following through with his advance, forcing them to close ranks behind him as he turned, then pushing one attack into the line of the other, forcing them to stagger their movements.

His blood roared in his ears and Asan closed his eyes, falling away into the trance that had served him so well against the rakghouls and the gamorreans in the Undercity, but this was twice as intense, overpowering, all-consuming. It felt like the air was choking him, rushing into his lungs in bursts, forcing an ice-cold spike into his chest. There was a tremble in the air around him. A shimmer that hugged his arms and body.

One of the Sith blades cut too close, burned across the energy shield over his chest, and the electric shock of the shield overloading cracked along Asan's arm even as he batted the laser sword away and deflected a second strike from Lussus, baring his teeth in a grimace of pain. But the heat on his chest and the burn in his arm seemed to crawl along his spine and settle in his gut, and he moved faster, smoother. His mind might not have known that it could fight like this, with such speed and brutality, but his body remembered. And something else drove him, fueled a sudden inhuman speed and strength, clouded his thoughts and drove him to instinct.

His weapon blocked, bound, and manipulated his enemy's blade, driving it down into the deck or far to the side, snaking forward in a riposte less than a moment later, but his opponents were just as skilled as he, just as swift, just as strong. Then retaliated, driving him back, gaining momentum, pressing his defenses to their utmost. And when it all seemed lost, when their attacks were coming within inches of his skin, when the blazing heat of the blades singed the hairs of his face, that was when he'd speed up, tap into something that crawled deep within, screaming out a war-cry and forcing them back, driving them before him.

But this strange power was fleeting, fickle. He'd slow again and it would begin again, the intricate dance of three. They were forced to outmaneuver him, forced to think through their steps and work together. This was something that Asan observed was growing more difficult as their anger and fury grew.

As it dragged on great glowing scars were burned into the deck at their feet, sweat was poured from their faces, and finally Asan opened his eyes again and saw Lussus flinch upon meeting them, hesitating in the face of his opponent, stepping wrong as the tempo of the battle passed him by. Asan didn't know what the Sith saw in his face that had shocked him, and he didn't care. He capitalized before his mind had even caught up to the moment at hand, lightsaber shifting murderously, thirsty for blood.

That was how Lussus lost his arm and shoulder.

The chunk of flesh, still holding the ignited weapon, dropped and Asan laughed cruelly, kicking it away as he turned his full attention upon the first of the Sith.

"What's your name?" he ground out between breaths, a dark anticipation building.

"Gatix," the man sneered. "Or don't you remember me, my lord?"

 _Driven, backs against the wall, five men against the rising tide._

 _Looking to the left, meeting the determined eyes of a young man._

 _The scar over his jaw, a thin line._

 _Then back at the coming storm._

 _The words of encouragement on his lips died. He offered a mere nod._

 _But that was enough._

It was the scar on his jaw that brought the name back from the void. As always, the scars seemed to prompt his memory.

"Gatix," Asan sounded out that name, catching the man's lightsaber and pushing it into the deck, sliding his own weapon up faster than the blink of an eye. The other man responded, and an old memory twinged, recognizing the instinct for what it was. He remembered teaching him these moves, remembered sparring for countless hours as a distraction from the gnawing Dark.

Asan pulled his blow, let the block go wide, and then pierced Gatix at the neck with a deft lunge. "Yes, I think I remember you, now. Predictable."

Gatix fell away to nothing, clawing at the smoking hole in his throat. Asan turned back to Lussus. The man was kneeling, staring with terror. "My lord….please..." he breathed. "Don't do this..."

"What?" Asan stalked forward, raising his eyes to the Sith soldiers that had pulled the other slaves from their cages, dragged them away. The golden soldiers had created a circle, were still fighting with the gangs, but they watched the confrontation through featureless visors. Revan could feel their fear. "I don't recall loyalty from you when it mattered."

"Revan, we had no choice..."

Asan roared and pressed his lightsaber forward, knocking Lussus onto his back in a frantic attempt to keep his life. And then there were words surging up and out of his mouth, and Asan couldn't stop them. It felt like a whole other person was speaking through him, asserting control. "There is always a choice! I taught you everything that you know!"

"Mercy!" Lussus cried out, clawing at the deck. "My lord, have mercy!"

And Asan was in control again, feeling a dark satisfaction burning in his chest. He wondered at his previous words, but not long enough to hesitate in speaking. "You'll find no mercy from me."

Lussus screamed in final desperation, raised his remaining arm with fingers bent into claws. A blast of cackling purple lightning exploded from the fallen Sith, spreading around them both in great fingers of shocking white and burning red, coloring the air a hazy blue. The power scorched the deck, wrapped around Asan's weapon, pressed towards him, and for a moment he was sure that he would die there, burnt to a pillar of ash, but when it touched him it was only something cold and familiar, not painful. The explosion washed over him like water over a rock, and a smile split his face, bared his teeth.

Then he drove his weapon the final inches, watching the younger man convulse, reaching up to grasp at the plasma with one desperate hand, splitting his arm down to the elbow in an instinctive twitch. Lussus' eyes blazed gold and red, his mouth opened in a howl that silenced the battlefield. Then he arched up and laid still, flesh sizzling around the embedded lightsaber.

Asan swung his weapon free, the dull hum reverberating in his gut. His eyes felt hot as he glared across at the soldiers around him. But he turned his back and walked away and they let him go. They didn't dare fire at his turned back.

Driving through the subdued melee was easier going back, but the euphoric rush was bleeding away with every step, and by the time that he broke from the crowd and straightened his back, there was a fatigue unlike anything that he had felt before deep in his bones. And he was faced with an argument, held while cowering behind a stack of crates.

"We have to go back!" the girl cried, gesturing to the battle.

"He's dead!" Carth hissed. "My responsibility is to the Republic. We have to get Bastila out of here, get her some help. I don't have time to argue about this anymore."

"Then let's go," Revan cut across, deactivating the lightsaber and enjoying their jerks of surprise. Even when Zaalbar nearly blasted him with the bowcaster, he still laughed.

Carth's eyes narrowed. "How did you get away? Are you hurt? You look pale."

"We have no time," Revan replied, raising his eyebrow and glancing significantly at Bastila. "Time to move."

So they did. They left the chaos behind them, piled into the airspeeder, and Revan held Bastila in his arms as the vehicle rocked beneath them. Laying his head back, he closed his eyes, tightened his fist around the lightsaber in his hand.

"Asan..." her voice called, and he opened his eyes again, clenching his jaw. Looking down, she was lucid, staring at him, but he could tell that she knew who he was. What he'd managed to do even without his memories.

"Don't call me that," he hissed, sitting her up with her back pinched painfully against the panel at the front of the vehicle. She cried out, but he gripped her shoulder and held her still. " _Don't_ move. Let me see the collar."

"Woah, easy," Carth urged, glancing to the side with slight unease. There was something different about Asan, something in the way that he was handling the woman that spoke of rage and a desire to inflict pain.

Revan inspected the collar and sneered. "It's locked. I'll cut if off her."

"Wait until we land," Carth replied, sensibly. Revan checked his motion towards his lightsaber, accepting the logic. It wouldn't help anyone to accidentally decapitate the woman before she could speak to him.

Bastila could only fight against the collar by relying on the bond between them. But she couldn't risk him discovering the reason for the Endar Spire's mission as well his name, couldn't trust him enough to open her mind in such a vulnerable fashion. If he knew about the bond...then he could protect himself against it, prevent her from learning what she needed to know. So Bastila let herself fall back under the influence of the slave collar, let her eyes glaze over, the pain of the panel digging into her back fading into the craze.

When they arrived, Revan hauled the Jedi out of the vehicle by her arm and ignited the lightsaber the moment their feet were on solid ground. Carth rushed around the front, uncertainty in his face, and even Mission flinched at how harsh he was being. But he didn't hurt the Jedi, only cutting the collar from her neck with a deft motion of his wrist, deactivating the lightsaber at once as she jerked and he pulled the hot metal away from the slight burn at the back of her neck.

Bastila gasped like a drowning woman and swayed on her feet, steadied by his arm and by her own hand gripping his shoulder. The Force asserted itself once more with a mind-shattering presence, tinged with the Dark of the man that held her, and when she finally breathed once, and opened her eyes, she met Revan's intense gaze, still colored bronze from the battle. Her skin crawled. She recognized Revan in that face, not like he had been before, on the Endar Spire.

"There," he said, releasing her. "Is your mind all yours again?"

"Yes," she breathed as she swayed on her feet, sudden weakness overcoming her.

"Well that's good. Mine isn't," he hissed at once as his shoulders hunched forward aggressively. "I don't think I'll ever have the luxury of having _my collar_ cut free. But you know that already. You were the one that put it there."

"No!" Bastila protested, but he pressed forward, ignoring Carth's exclamation of surprise as Bastila bounced off the airspeeder at her back, leaning away from him and shaking. "I didn't...I swear. It was the Council."

"Are you afraid of me?" he whispered. "You must have known who I am all along."

"That's enough!" Carth barked, hauling Asan away by his arm. The mercenary laughed darkly and shoved Carth away with little effort.

"Don't touch me," he bit out. "I deserve some answers. I didn't even know my own goddamn name until a Sith told it to me at the point of my blade! But _she_ knows."

Bastila swallowed. "You aren't that man anymore. That's not your name."

"No?" Asan hissed. "I guess I can't argue that. Not after what you Jedi have done to me." He laughed hollowly and turned his back to her, attempting to curb his rising fury. "I thought I had an idea of who I was. Thought I was settling in to this new life as a mercenary. You must have thought me a fool."

"We had no choice."

He sneered and spun back around. Mission, Carth, and Bastila flinched away from him at the sight of his face, at the blazing heat in his eyes, the golden light. "I'm _sick_ of people justifying their sins to me. There is _always_ a choice, Jedi. I thought you would understand that. It is one of your own teachings."

"This rage isn't your own," Bastila urged him desperately. "Breathe. Don't let the Dark Side control you. That is one of _your_ teachings."

Revan narrowed his eyes. "I'm not in danger of losing control, Jedi. When I slaughtered those Sith, _then_ I was out of control. And I knew them, somehow. Hell, I probably taught them everything that they knew. I bet _you_ could tell me. But you expected this I'd imagine, and you won't not even if it might kill you. _This_ is what you have always been afraid of. It is why you had seven Jedi on the Endar Spire. You thought, just in case I broke the shackles that you've put on me, that you might need some _goddamn backup_."

"What is he talking about?" Carth cut across the argument.

Revan waved him off. "Tell me why _they_ did it. The Jedi do not execute their prisoners, is that not what I read from your vaunted code?" his voice was rising to a roar, a terrible crescendo that traveled down his neck in a pulse of black and glowed in his eyes like fire. "But I suppose raping a prisoner's mind, destroying their memories, tearing away their past, and leaving them empty as a burnt-out husk is alright!"

"That wasn't what we did..." Bastila's voice was swept away by the storm.

"That's _exactly_ what you've done!" Revan bellowed, gesturing with the hilt of the lightsaber, dangerously close to pressing the power with his thumb. "Can't you see I'm _clawing_ to keepmy sanity? Don't you see how..." he choked off at once, staggering back and covering his face with his hand.

Bastila was shaking, eyes on his weapon. "You have to control yourself. You can't let yourself fall back..."

"You mean I can't ever remember who I was," Asan clarified sharply. "You'd rather kill me, is that right? You'd rather die trying than let me ever remember more than my name."

"No!" Bastila objected uselessly. "It was never you that the Jedi feared, but the Dark Side that had corrupted you."

"You must have _hated_ me so much to turn me into _this_ , a half of a man," Asan whispered, all rage bleeding away and leaving such an ache that he smiled, baring teeth in a parody of joy. "And I can't even remember why."

"Didn't you hear what I said..."

"Be silent!" he bellowed again, and as swift as the rage had gone it was back. His thumb ran over the lightsaber's switch, muscles trembling. "I don't want to hear any more _lies_ from you, Jedi. I have to think. Have to get this straight. Have to fight _this._ " He gestured at his face.

He back-stepped once, feeling their eyes burning into him, feeling Carth's paranoid gaze and Mission's pity. But most of all, Bastila's terror. What was she so afraid of? What had he done to deserve that from her? She must have recognized this thing that was hidden within him, the demon rearing its head in his voice, still hot with bloodshed.

"Where will you go?" Mission asked, and her voice cooled him, drew his attention away from the focus of his rage.

"I need a drink," Asan breathed. And he turned away and ran.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Carth Onasi watched Bastila shaking, her eyes tracking the loping, predator-like steps of the man that he thought he'd known. There went the warrior that had carried him through the Lower City, the killer that had cut a swath through the Vulkars to gather supplies. This was man that had saved his life, poured out his blood, and given him direction. The oppressive weight in the air seemed to lift when Asan passed beyond sight, and the war hero released his pent-up breath.

It wasn't entirely unexpected, this kind of outburst. Carth had seen a bottled-up agony lurking in the other man's eyes, but he never would have guessed that the mercenary blamed the Jedi for whatever had happened. Carth watched the young woman, saw her impeccable façade cracked, and in that moment, she looked exactly like any girl of twenty ought to look. She was only three years older than Carth's son would have been in a few more weeks. At that moment it felt more than a little bit pathetic that the Republic's hopes laid on the shoulders of someone so young.

"What the hell?" came Mission's bewildered exclamation. Carth raised an eyebrow, wondering if she'd give up the infatuation that she'd developed for the amnesiac after seeing a harsher side to his personality.

But, he shouldn't have been so foolish. Her eyes were wide and features flushed, that was true, but she actually looked indignant on his behalf, rather than intimidated by the heated gold glare in the man's eyes or the aggressive gestures he had been making. Carth almost snorted-wondering about the irrationality of such a crush-but he bit his tongue; he was curious about Bastila's reply and didn't want to interrupt.

Bastila barked a breathless laugh, sagged against the bike. She was dressed in a tattered slave's uniform, unlike the other Republic officers who had obviously not been deemed enticing enough for special treatment. Carth winced, wishing once again that there was something that they could have done for those men, but at least Bastila was safe. That had been his mission all along.

And even in such rags, she managed to look regal as the fear left her and her shoulders straightened. "I can explain...I think," she started, a slight grimace of unease marring her features.

Mission eyes narrowed and her jaw set. "I think you had better do that now."

The Jedi looked at her amused. "Well, he has always inspired loyalty like this. Even when he is not himself, I see he has found an admirer."

Mission crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. Zaalbar stepped up to the group, bowcaster at his side, bandoleer pulled tight to his chest. A few patches of singed fur was all that indicated that they'd just vacated a battlefield. "His pain was severe and hidden by his anger. He left so that he would not do something that he would later regret," the wookiee growled quietly. The question was implied in his posture, and Carth realized for the first time that his comrade had collected two loyalists, not one.

"That's good," Bastila breathed. "I feared...well, let me start at the beginning." She paused for a moment, visibly gathering herself, shoulders straightening, features clearing, slipping again into the strange countenance of a Jedi, a maturity and stoicism that belied her young age.

"You know that I was one of the Jedi that was sent to confront Revan on his flagship during the last large-scale confrontation between the Republic and the Sith fleets. The Jedi Council agreed to publicize Revan's death, but there were some things kept secret. For one thing, it was not the Jedi that achieved victory there, but Malak. The apprentice betrayed the master, and when he fired upon Darth Revan's flagship during the battle, the vessel was destroyed moments after my strike team had reached the bridge. And Revan was dying. Of the Jedi that had been fighting there, only I had survived the explosion.

I took him with me, in critical condition, and fled the ship during the second volley, which detonate the reactor and vaporized the vessel. I lied to the Republic soldiers, told them he was one of the Jedi from my team. And that was how Revan ended up on Dantooine."

Carth huffed a breathless laugh, shaking his head. The dots had already connected in his head. "You can't be serious. I'd heard of this kind of shit, Bastila, but only in history books!"

"The Jedi Council," Bastila continued, closing her eyes, "determined that we could use his captivity to find out how the Sith have amassed such a fleet in such a short time. They wanted to find a way to redeem him, to use him against the monster that he'd created in the Sith empire. So, they delved into the injured Dark Lord's mind, seeking to understand him, to know his history. But even unconscious as he was, he was strong enough to bring them to their knees in that mental struggle. One of the healers died from burst blood vessels behind her eyes, and the rest were left unconscious. After their failure, the Council destroyed his mind, erased his memories, and scattered everything that defined the man himself. They implanted another identity, the man that you're familiar with, in the place of the Dark Lord. This is a practice that has not been used for centuries among the Jedi, but there have been precedents. So, from a certain point of view, Revan is dead indeed, and the Jedi did not lie."

Carth was shaking his head. "No," he said almost immediately. "I've heard of what the Force can do to a mind. If the Jedi had wanted him to be a docile, harmless farmer on Dantooine, they could have spun a web so convincing that he'd never realize that he was living a lie. But they didn't. They left him clues, made him a soldier again, thrust him back into the war that he'd begun. They put him on board _my ship_ , and packed a full platoon of Jedi to boot. So that's not the whole story, Jedi. If Revan is as dead and gone as you think, then what was the purpose of your mission?"

Bastila looked at him, tilted her chin up as though she might not answer, but then she sighed and pressed a hand to her head. "After all these deaths...you deserve to know. But Revan can never know this."

Mission shuffled her feet and leaned forward, but Bastila didn't glance her way, focusing on the Captain. "The Council believed that, for my part in saving his life, that I may be able to salvage scraps of his memories in dreams. We had hoped that putting him in familiar places might trigger these memories, and allow us insight into his fall and subsequent rise as Sith. The procedure they conducted obscured his mind and layered the new upon the old. But in dreams…in dreams, some of his past experiences resurface as nightmares."

Carth hung his head, and Mission could see that he was shaking, much like Asan had been shaking. And then the Jedi turned towards her, eyes narrow. "You must not tell him this. I sense that you admire him, but you do not know who he is, not really."

Mission scowled fiercely. "I'm appalled at what the Jedi did to him. Haven't you seen how he struggles with what you've done? Don't you think he deserves the truth?"

"If he knows what our goals are, then he could prevent me from learning anything from his dreams," Bastila insisted. "It would make everything that the Council had worked for futile."

"I don't see how that's a problem for _him_ ," Mission dismissed. "If you want to do some kind of weird dream-sharing Jedi thing, then you should ask permission. That's what I think. I think that the Jedi should have killed him if he was an enemy or helped him if he was their friend. But this…mystical procedure sounds like a lot of explaining away something truly evil."

"The man was a Sith Lord," Carth objected, finally raising his head. "He burned worlds, betrayed his oaths, and led an army so unfeeling and cruel that the Republic trembles at their approach. He could do so again, if the thin line between Asan Dumat and Darth Revan ever blurs. The Jedi haven't defeated him, they've only delayed his awakening!"

Mission scoffed. "This is Asan we're talking about. The Jedi just said that they buried his past so deeply that he only experiences them as dreams. So, he knows a name. That doesn't make him evil an evil man."

"No, it doesn't. But his blatant disregard for life, his utter lack of empathy, and the blood that soaks his hands do," Carth retorted. "Before, I thought it was just that he was a cold individual, somebody that had seen too much of war to really experience the rest of life, but that was before I knew that he was a Sith. All the things I noticed, all the disturbing moments, are indications that enough of his old self remains for it to influence his behavior. You saw how unhinged he was when he left! You saw the color of his eyes! Just think of what he might do if he wakes up one night, knowing what the Jedi have done to him? Not to mention the fact that he defeated _two_ Dark Jedi back there, somehow, when he supposedly doesn't remember a lick of his training as a Jedi or as a Sith. So, Bastila, I don't think that the procedure that the Council performed was as foolproof as they expected it to be. And, Mission, I think you should take a few moments and think about the kind of man you've given your loyalty to. You might not like what he becomes, given a few weeks or a month."

Bastila sighed. "My greatest fear is not that he remembers, but that he falls once again to the Dark Side. As I told Revan, the Jedi never hated him personally. In fact, there were many Jedi that admired him, though they remained in Coruscant and Dantooine when he left to fight the Mandalorians. The Jedi are enemies of the Dark, and that was why we fought him. Because of how he had fallen, not because of his politics or even the attack on the Republic. I fear that the knowledge of the Council's actions and their intentions could drive him to such a rage that the Dark Side could return. It festers in hatred and delights in anger."

"Which is exactly why you're asking me to lie," Mission concluded. "But don't you think he would be just as furious if he ever discovered that you had lied for however long? You can see how much he values the truth."

"I don't think you understand," Carth enunciated slowly. "He isn't going to get a little upset and wave his hands around. This is a Sith Lord we're talking about. He'll kill you, Mission. He's killed hundreds of thousands of people who were stronger than you, and perhaps millions who were more innocent. He would not think twice, if it came down to revenge. Bastila keeps these secrets for all our sakes."

"He saved your life," Mission retorted sharply. "He saved _my life_. He carved his way through the Undercity for a stranger he didn't even know and saved Zaalbar's life. He fought for three days to rescue Bastila from slavers, and he didn't know anything about her."

"He's also killed perhaps a hundred people in those three days alone," Carth responded calmly. "He saves some and ends others. Even crippled—and I'm beginning to doubt that he is much crippled, if at all—he's an absolute menace. I don't think we could kill him now even if we wanted to. If that ever became an option, I actually think we'd fail. Bastila had her chance to end him when he was wounded, and she didn't."

"No," Bastila broke in. "We could not slay him, not because he is too powerful, but because it would be wrong to do so. Even worse, force bonds like that which I share with him have their disadvantages. I would feel his pain, were he to be severely injured. And if he died, the shock could be severe enough that I might lose the ability to command the Force entirely. With its absence, my sanity might swiftly deteriorate. Such things have been observed in the past."

Carth blinked, shocked, then shook his head. "That's assuming he comes back at all. If he doesn't just turn us into the Sith garrison and go back to conquering the galaxy."

Bastila shook her head. "Malak was the one that betrayed him, didn't you listen? Revan is alone."

Mission puffed out her chest. "Not while I'm here," she declared. "I'll go find him."

"You must be insane," Carth sneered. "Knowing who he is, you still keep up this…teenage infatuation?"

"Teenage-!" Mission bit her tongue and continued more calmly, closing her eyes. "He can be a good man. I think that you've blinded yourself to that, knowing his old name. I was never harmed by Revan while he lived, so I have a unique perspective. The Sith, the Republic; what does matter to a street rat like me? All of you are different bureaucrats, wearing different hats and fancy uniforms. And you say that Revan's murdered millions, but just as many have died because of the Republic military, and their generals have just as much guilt. But I'm not going to argue about war with you. I'm going to go and talk to the man I know. I'll listen to what he has to say."

Bastila, shocked by the explanation, said nothing as Mission brushed past the wookiee and followed in Asan's steps. Carth watched her with a fire in his eyes, but his jaw was set and he held his tongue.

Mission stopped and looked over her shoulder several paces away. "Maybe if you took a chance and spoke with him yourself you'd find that he isn't some heartless monster just waiting to kill you while your sleeping. Maybe you could find the man that saved your life and traded barbs over a surgeon's needle."

Bastila finally smiled in that cold way for which Jedi were widely known. "The Jedi have long said that people will become what they are expected to be. And here we have such wisdom from the young."

"You aren't that much older than me," Mission swept her eyes up and down Bastila's ensemble. All pretense of seriousness dropped and she smiled with disarming humor. "Are all Jedi rockin' that kind of body? Hot damn."

"I need a jacket," Bastila grumbled, folding her arms, some of the young woman behind the Jedi mask shining through with a slight blush. Mission laughed and turned her back.

"You coming, Big Z?"

The wookiee trudged after her, mumbling about food. Behind him, Carth heaved a sigh and took Bastila to find more suitable clothes.

* * *

He had a glass in his hand but he wasn't drinking. Just turning it slowly, watching the amber fluid splashing against the immaculate, clear crystal. He felt her approach and saw her sit, but he didn't say anything, and she just watched him as the minutes fell away and his mind turned over the problem of his identity, working but never coming nearer to understanding.

Eventually he glanced up at the young woman and sighed. "I had a decision to make, a few days ago."

"Hm?"

"I knew that something wasn't right about this," he continued, gesturing vaguely. "And I knew that there were things about myself that….that I don't really understand. There are desires I have that I never wanted, instincts that I would rather forget. But I chose to follow the trail, to seek answers. And I think I knew that it wasn't going to be easy. But I never imagined this."

Mission nodded carefully. "How does it change things? Does it make you feel different?"

He looked at her then, really looked, and a slow smile spread on his face. "You aren't afraid of me? Didn't Bastila tell you who I am?"

"Should I be afraid?" Mission turned the question around, almost teasing.

But he turned serious and looked across to where Zaalbar was eating and watching them. "You should, I think. I...sometimes I look at people and I just think about the best way to tear them apart, to break through their fragile perceptions of the world and show them the beating heart below. And I know that I should be afraid of that desire, but I'm not. I don't know who I am anymore."

"What do you mean by that?"

"And sometimes," Revan whispered, closing his eyes and wondering why he was still talking, "sometimes I think about the lives I take and wonder why I'm not guilty. That's why I fought so hard to find Bastila, to get her in my hands. First to get some answers, to learn about what could have happened to make me this way. Then it changed, like an obsession…"

Mission breathed in and turned her head to the side. "You know, I think you were wrong before."

He startled and looked at her with a question in his eyes.

"You said that everyone's got this evil inside, a bit of the rakghoul, clawing free. And I think you might be right about that. After what I saw this week...well, it's hard to deny, I guess. I don't know how I went for so many years without thinking about it, just kind of gliding by. I guess I put some effort into avoiding that truth," Mission clarified, leaning forward so that she could look deep into his eyes, where she'd seen that fire burn just an hour ago, now swallowed by black. "But you're wrong about accepting it. Don't make peace with it. Nobody ever defeats evil by making peace with it or by accepting it."

"I think you're a fool to look for the good in me," Asan—Revan—actually laughed, but it was a quiet thing. "You know when I first met you I saw how kind and innocent you were, and my first thought was that I should break you."

"But you didn't," Mission breathed, even as she sat back a little bit in surprise.

"You've changed," Revan reminded her. "You said it yourself, the things that you've seen this week. I bet those women—the ones I slaughtered—feature prominently when you let yourself relax and close your eyes. And I don't know that the decision I made there wasn't in part designed to make you question how you looked at the world."

A long silence, and he raised his glass and took his first drink. Giving her the time she needed to walk away. But she stayed where she was. And when his glass clinked against the metal table, she spoke. "I think you'd have to be pretty damn arrogant to say a thing like that. You're trying to scare me away, I know, but you actually believe that you alone could possibly be responsible for my 'growing up.'"

He snorted, and looked away. But he couldn't deny it.

"You made the choice that you felt was best," Mission emphasized. "And I...I guess I'll just go on believing that you had our safety in mind. That you just put our lives above theirs. But even if you didn't, even if you killed them for other reasons, you weren't the one that chained them down, dragged them into the sewers, and left them for dead. Somehow, you've got it into your head that your killing them was the nightmarish part of that scenario, but you're wrong. Trying to sleep, I keep thinking about how easily that might have been me, over these last years. And I wonder just how many other women and children never saw the light of day down there. But now I know that beneath me feet, there's that evil. There is that kind of selfish chaotic ambition which drives monsters like those slavers. And I never knew what evil really was before I saw the cages and the chains and the horror. All around me there are people that might be next, that are just so vulnerable to the touch of chaos. And _that_ I can't forget. So, try not to be so self-centered to think that you were the only one responsible for breaking my glass house."

He couldn't speak, only stare. In that moment, it was like looking at a star, so bright, almost purely white, but surrounded by the black, struggling to keep its flame. He didn't know what he could possibly say in its light. Then he blinked, and it was just Mission, and her lip was trembling, there were tears in her eyes. He reached across the table.

"You're a good woman," he said. "A strong woman. I don't know what you see in me, Mission. I don't know why you want to follow me across the galaxy as a mercenary. I can't...I can't stand up to this futile struggle in myself. I can feel that I'm slipping, and I don't know where it will take me. I'm not really sure it's a line between good and evil, or light and dark, or whatever kind of Jedi nonsense you want to call it. I think it's just…me."

"I think you have too high an opinion of me. I've done things that I'd never want to reveal to my mother, rest her soul," she demurred, clearing her throat and blinking away her tears.

"I'm not scared of much," he continued, ignoring her words but watching her eyes. "But I guess I'm scared of committing to that fight and losing. I'm afraid of who I might hurt when I lose."

"Sometimes it doesn't matter how big or bad you are, you just need a friend to weather the storm at your side. Somebody that you can rely upon, through thick and thin," Mission uttered sagely, then flashed a grin. "My brother taught me that. It was right before he skipped town, ironically, but the advice is sound, I think. If this is about you discovering who you are, then maybe you need somebody to give you an outside perspective, somebody that isn't going to hold your past against you. And if it's about evil, then you're going to need somebody to remind you why you're fighting. But I think it says something about your character, that you are thinking about this at all."

"Maybe I won't care, come tomorrow," Revan chuckled. "And is that who you want to be, then? A friend to the Dark Lord of the Sith? There are plenty of people that will kill you for associating with me."

"If you're protecting me, I'm not concerned about your enemies," Mission reminded him. "And you're not a Sith."

He scoffed and shook his head. "I've got the lightsaber. And I'm guessing you saw my eyes...the skin. I can feel it...what Bastila called the Dark Side. The Jedi might have taken my memories, but they didn't take _that_. I guess all I'm missing is the sorcery."

"Well, maybe you're a _little bit_ Sith-like," Mission conceded. "But I told Bastila earlier that it didn't matter to me, Jedi or Sith. What's the difference, other than the color of your light-stick?"

"The difference is that one will kill you and the other will debate you to death," Revan offered dryly, thinking of Paula, Bastila, and Yasaya. "One will break you because he can't stand to see anyone at peace, and the other will make you break yourself because they can't stand to see anyone truly free."

"Well, you're cheery. I thought you'd be happy at least that you _know_ , Revan," she drawled. He frowned at her, jaw clenching at the offhand reference to that name, but the rush of anger was replaced by a bark of dull laughter.

"You like living dangerously, saying that name out loud in a place like this," he muttered, looking to the side. "I suppose Carth wants to kill me, then?"

Mission bit her lip. "Well...he recognizes that he'd be stupid to try. Bastila said something about how the bond between you would make your death quite…unfortunate for her. And you _did_ save his life. So I think that your death is off the table, for the moment."

"We'll be dead soon enough, as soon as Malak comes down here himself," Revan shrugged dismissively. "But I suppose I'd better go back, face the music. We should work together as long as we're still kicking."

"There's something conflicting about those statements," Mission mused, rising with him. Her eyes searched his expression. "Do you feel any better?"

"No," he replied easily. She blinked, and he laughed, walking around the table and throwing an arm round her shoulders. "But nice try."

"Hmph, you're a liar," she decided, shrugging his arm off and walking ahead of him a step, tossing a head-tail over her shoulder as she glanced back. She saw a kind of longing in his eyes that she wasn't familiar with, more intense but entirely different than the lecherous leers that she was accustomed to receiving. He watched her like she was a treasure, like something beautiful. She blushed and hastened her steps.


	12. Chapter 11

A/N: Heyo folks. Sorry that this guy was a few days late, I've been chipping away at too many works all at once, got sidetracked. Anyway, I don't usually leave notes, but I wanted to respond to a few concerns that had been repeated by reviewers about Mission, since I plan to have her play a more significant role in this story than she was in the games.

This is an Alternate Universe. Characters, places, and institutions will not be the same as they were in canon. As for Mission specifically, I wanted a character among Revan's company that was not necessarily biased toward the Republic or the Sith, but mature enough that I didn't feel awkward about Revan's darker inclinations towards her.

Anyway, I hope y'all are enjoying the story so far despite its AU qualities.

Chapter 11

Samuel heard the summons and knew that Lussus was dead. The fact that the Force was bucking and surging like a maddened animal around the planet far beneath his feet only reinforced his rising dread, and so it was with great reluctance that the weary Sith boarded his shuttle and crossed the distance to Darth Malak's flagship. Was he going to be next, he wondered? Would he become the next poor misguided soul to be swallowed up by this bloody, gods-forsaken war?

Whatever he had been expecting upon his arrival, it had not been the Dark Lord himself standing upon the ramparts of the docking bay with a lieutenant shaking at his side like a leaf in the wind, equal parts stunned and frightened. Samuel approached carefully, cautious of Malak's mercurial temper, but he found the Dark Lord speaking softly with the Lieutenant. The tail end of the conversation reached his ears in earnest tones. "You survived. You brought back Republic officers for interrogation. I don't blame you for refusing to engage a far superior foe, especially after more powerful men had been cut down in front of your eyes. Take your soldiers and get treatment for whatever injuries they might have acquired. You are dismissed."

"Yes…of course, my lord. Thank you," the lieutenant bowed stiffly, settled his full helm back over his shaved head and deserted from the hangar with haste.

Malak shook his head and turned to face his old friend, now a rival among the Sith. His expression, as always, was unreadable, due to the metal jaw that encased the bottom half of his face. "Samuel. Walk with me," came the command, and the younger man nodded acceptance.

They passed through the blast doors to the interior of the ship and walked nearly half the warship's length before Malak finally spoke. "I called you here just to talk," he declared, and a sinking pit of dread opened up in Samuel's gut. He couldn't imagine very many reasons for a discussion like this, save for suspicions. A part of him groaned in regret at his fear, remembering a time in the past when he had respected the great Jedi Knight Alek too much to doubt his intentions for simple conversations, but those days were long gone. Alek was no more.

"Of course, my Lord," Samuel agreed. "What did you wish to discuss?"

Malak stopped in his loping strides and turned abruptly. "So cold," he observed. "So formal. Are we not friends, Samuel?"

"We are," the younger man rushed to reassure. "I was only paying you the proper respect…"

"Friends are not afraid of their friends, Samuel," Malak interrupted. "Or do you have something in particular to fear? Have we truly become enemies?"

Samuel's jaw clicked shut, and he struggled to find words. But none came. The dread that had been so subtle was clawing up his spine with icy fingers, choking the air from his chest, and he clenched his jaw.

"You look like a startled womprat," Malak suddenly laughed. "That was real terror. Have I become such a beast, Samuel?"

How was he meant to respond to that?

"No, don't answer," Malak sighed, the mechanical sound like a rattle in his reconstructed throat. "I know the agonizing truth of the matter, Samuel. I only wonder, for how long you must have known as well. It only just occurred to me that you never changed your name, while all the rest of us claimed titles and thought the galaxy hinged upon our every action. Our arrogance was astounding, blinding, suffocating. But yours was different. It was quiet."

"Malak?" Samuel breathed. This was not the man that he had come to fear, the one that he was painfully familiar with. The eyes glaring out at him from the shadows of the Dark Lord's face were changed, just as harsh, just as hard, but now tempered with true regret, with a weight beyond words.

"I was such a fool, Samuel. I needed somebody to talk to, somebody that might understand," the Dark Lord continued softly. "I wondered if you were still the young man that I had once known you to be, even after Revan and I dragged you through the grime, through the blood. I wondered if you weren't just a rabid dog like the rest of us. Or perhaps you hadn't forgotten."

"Forgotten what?"

Malak hissed a low, rattling breath that sounded like a death rattle and his shoulders shook in a cold, cynical chuckle. "I would say that we've forgotten the reasons for our war, but that would be understating the horror. We've truly forgotten _ourselves,_ Samuel. I wonder if you've seen it? Haven't you ever looked at somebody that you thought you knew and wondered who they had become? Haven't you ever seen that _thing_ that crawls in the eyes of our fellow Sith and trembled?"

"Malak…I don't know what I'm meant to say…"

"Don't bloody well think about what I expect of you, Samuel!" Malak exploded. "Don't just stand there and quake in fear! I'm not going to choke you, or shock you, or throw you to the ground just for telling me the truth. I want to know who you are."

Samuel winced. "I fear that you will find me lacking," he answered slowly.

"Then so be it," Malak declared. "But I would rather know. I tire of living this…this mockery of the goals I had once held so dear. I didn't realize how _tired_ I was of the endless hatred, of the rage, of the fear."

Samuel couldn't believe his ears, couldn't believe his eyes. Were those tears glittering in the eyes of a Sith? Was that pain that he heard in the voice of the Dark Lord? Was this regret that he read in the body language of the greatest warlord in recent memory, second only to the recently departed dread Lord Revan? "I…have had my doubts about the Sith, Malak. I always found Revan unapproachable after the war in the unknown regions. I have found our fellow Sith harsh and unfeeling, detached, and dangerously prone to extremes."

"I would have called that weakness, yesterday," Malak rumbled. "I would have accused you of treasonous thoughts. If I had not heard much the same doubts from Revan's own lips. If I had not felt the very same regrets, I would have killed you. _You._ One of my oldest and most loyal friends."

Samuel swallowed thickly. "That is what I mean. The Sith have rejected the Jedi so completely that we've swung too far in the opposite direction, we've succumbed to obsession and impulsiveness and paranoia."

Malak shook his head. "It isn't that simple, Samuel. The Jedi were right to fear the Dark; they are wiser than even they know, with that fear. They might have gotten everything else wrong, but at least they knew enough to be afraid."

"What do you mean?" Samuel breathed. "I thought the Force would set us free. Isn't that what we've been preaching to all the rest for two years?"

Malak almost choked on his laugh. "We never told anyone why we withdrew from the unknown regions, Revan and I. We never told you how far we had fallen. Nobody doubted us, because we were _legends_. Not even our closest friends ever confronted us in our folly. We couldn't even trust each other after that _monster_ forced us to our knees in that dusty throne room and cast poisonous doubt across our every thought."

Samuel glanced down the corridor at an orderly and another Sith officer. He sighed and pinched his nose. "Shall we find someplace less…conspicuous? It would not be advantageous for the rumor mill to catch wind of any indecision on your part."

"I'm not allowed to be afraid?" Malak exclaimed, spreading his arms. "I am not allowed to doubt? Is that the burden of a Master?"

"The burden of a master is, and always has been, the blind trust of his students," Samuel emphasized.

Malak shrugged. "Then come, I have an interrogation to perform. Perhaps it will clear up some of your understandable confusions."

Samuel found himself in an interrogator's chamber, the very place that he had dreaded minutes prior, but rather than being strapped down to the table himself, he stood passively to the side as Malak scrutinized the Republic officer who was locked down on the harsh metal, thick bands of steel around his wrists and ankles. The man was groggily waking, tossing his head and straining against the restraints, but Malak did not appear too interested in the man himself, but rather the injuries that he had acquired.

"These bruises are older than a few hours," he observed, straightening and gesturing at the soldier. "He must have been beaten by the slavers."

Samuel nodded neutrally. Malak's eyes were sharp as they gazed upon him, and after a moment the Dark Lord chuckled softly. "What do you expect me to do to this man?"

"The Sith have not been known for their kindness," Samuel offered.

Malak nodded as well as he could with his mechanical jaw. "No…but rather for our cruelty. The Dark Side cherishes agony, Samuel. Have you ever wondered why?"

The younger Sith shook his head and spared a glance for the man on the table, who had fallen suspiciously silent and still upon laying eyes upon the Sith standing above him. The interrogation table was angled to give the impression that the subject was standing, even if his feet were not on the ground, but if it were to come to a true interrogation it would be lowered. The posture of the questioner was almost as important as the pain and the questions, for it reinforced the sense of powerlessness.

"The Dark Side is malevolent. It is alive," Malak breathed. "Its desires are sadistic, it is driven by its own hatred. I believe that it is the driving force behind every act of evil, every selfish thought, every ounce of cruelty, but it doesn't _create_ evil. Evil is a choice, Samuel. But once chosen, once given a foothold, the Dark Side will work its utmost to make sure that there is no turning back. It dominates you, like an addiction or, perhaps ironically, like a master itself."

"Why are you telling me this?" Samuel wondered.

Malak tilted his head slightly in question. "It should have been Revan to teach you. He was always the master. I am a poor substitute, but not because I am less powerful, though I am, and not because I am more a fool. Until this moment, I was less than Revan because I never realized how just much of myself I had lost to the Dark Side. I never noticed its cruel manipulations, never saw its perversions gnawing at my mind and the things that I had created. I never felt the tragedy of the Sith Order that we founded on Korriban, never realized just how lost we've become."

"What do we do?" Samuel wondered. "What prompted you to change?"

"And now we come to this," Malak shifted his feet and looked firmly down at the soldier strapped to the table. "Officer, what is your name?"

The Republic soldier stiffened. "I will not tell you anything."

"I do know how the Republic trains its officers. That is not how you are told to respond to interrogation. Soldier! What is your name?"

"Lieutenant Lucas Garcia. Two-Four-Echo Five-Nine-Fox!" the officer snapped. Malak relaxed a bit, and Samuel got the impression that the man would have been grinning if he still had his jaw.

"You know they gave us training back before the Mandalorian Wars," the Dark Lord offered to both men. "Yes, they didn't think that Revan was qualified to lead soldiers, no matter the years of training that we had both received in the Jedi Temple. We suffered through what you call Basic, but for special forces. Revan was much better at resisting interrogation than I was, much better. That was why I was the one that broke, and not he."

No one said anything, feeling a subtle, rising tension in the Dark Lord's words. They were not disappointed.

Malak leaned closer to Lieutenant Garcia. "The Mandalorians could not break him. They tried, for two weeks, on Dxun when he was captured assisting in the withdrawal of the Republic's thirty-second infantry battalion. When we found him, he was nothing but scars and bones, incapable of walking, or even sitting up under his own power. But I know that he didn't tell them anything, not even his own name, although they knew that already. His reputation had preceded him.

Revan did not break when the Sith defeated us beyond the Outer Rim, when our fleet was shattered in orbit above Dromund Kaas, when he and I were forced to our knees before the throne of the Emperor. He did not falter when they burned him in the Force, tore his mind apart, and twisted the both of us into beasts. They wanted him to destroy the Republic when they were finished, and he had agreed. But the moment they were gone, he started making plans to _save_ you.

So why did you think, fool, that the Republic would succeed where the Mandalorians and the Sith had failed? Why did you think that the Jedi, kindhearted fools, would be better at breaking and twisting his mind than the Sith?"

"What are you talking about?" the Republic soldier spat. "Revan is dead."

"No," Malak declared. "Tell me about the one that saved Bastila at the races, Lieutenant. He was assigned to the Endar Spire by the Jedi, wasn't he?"

The officer tightened his jaw. "That was a mercenary."

"Ah," Malak shrugged. "I see that your loyalty does not extend beyond your own men. Well, what was his name?"

"Asan Dumat," came the reply. "He's special forces. Absolutely lethal."

"That much he is," Malak agreed. "But you're wrong about the name. You see, my own soldiers recognized that man when they went down to take Bastila. Two of my oldest Sith were killed in a duel against that mercenary. You see, Lieutenant, the mercenary Asan Dumat is Revan."

Samuel stared at the Dark Lord in total shock, and the Republic officer didn't respond. His head fell back against the metal table and Malak crossed his arms over his chest, a heat growing in his eyes.

"Do you see it now?" he asked them both. "The Jedi captured Revan after I fired upon his flagship, they took him _home,_ to Dantooine _._ Like complete fools, they thought that they could just turn back time, make him the Jedi that he had once been, and use him against his own army, his own Order, his own brother. But Revan would not give up as easily as that, even after I had betrayed him. I spoke to him, in a dream. The bond between a master and his apprentice is strong. It does not break, but merely weakens."

"He is alive?" Samuel breathed, a kind of heat in his chest and gut. It was joy, unbridled enthusiasm. And Hope. "Lord Revan lives."

"You're lying," the Republic officer declared, the opposite effect stirring in him. There was abject horror in his features. "It is not possible."

Malak ignored him and looked to Samuel. "You were his second disciple. You knew him better than anyone else among the Sith, second only to me. But I cannot leave, I have a role to play in the Order and the Empire. You must go. That was why I called you here. Revan needs you. He needs someone that remembers end to remind him of who he is."

"Of course, I will do it," Samuel agreed immediately. "How shall I find him?"

"When the battle begins in the Lower City, you must pretend to desert our forces. Swear your loyalty to Revan, and do whatever you must to prove it. Do not concern yourself for the lives of the Sith, twisted beasts that they are. But have mercy for our soldiers and officers, Samuel. They have been the backbone of this empire since the beginning, and they are the ones that deserve our respect," Malak intoned quietly. "Gain Revan's trust. Do what you can to help him. The Jedi will seek to poison him, they will sow seeds of doubt in him, but you can remind him of his own teachings. And, I am sure, Revan will have things to teach you in return. He was always a better Master than I was, even now when he is at his worst."

"When do I leave?"

"The next landing begins in twelve hours," Malak said, gesturing to the door. "I would go and prepare yourself. I have some more questions for our Lieutenant."


	13. Chapter 12

A/N: It's another chapter mostly full of talk, but hopefully the interesting kind. A bit on the longer side, but there wasn't a good place to chop it. Worry not, big battles upcoming!

I wanted to mention that I appreciate how respectful folks have been so far. I really enjoy hearing people's thoughts and taking them into account moving forward, so never fear that suggestions or observations are ignored. Not all of them will be immediately obvious, of course, but I do think about them, at least. Anyway, do enjoy.

Chapter 12

Revan returned to the Bek base and was glad, at least, that the gang members didn't know about his identity, despite the fact that the Sith had addressed him openly throughout the battle at the race. Gadon had been looking for him, apparently, and he allowed Zaerdra to escort him to the man's office on the second floor of their base, with Mission trailing along at his side. Zaalbar begged off and went to tinker with the bikes, satisfied that there was no immediate threat to Revan here at the base.

Carth and Bastila were already there, speaking to Gadon in quiet tones, and when the elevator opened the atmosphere became noticeably colder. Carth straightened in his chair, and Bastila's expression closed off, becoming unreadable, distant. "Happy to see you, too," Revan muttered, drawing up a chair and sitting down at the long rectangular table. "I'm sure you recognize how precarious our situation is."

"The Lower City can expect to enter full guerrilla warfare with the Sith in the next two or three days," Gadon declared, spreading his hands out on the desk. "This isn't anything foreign to us. We fought the Mandalorians. We'll fight the Sith, too."

"Why?" Revan asked, raising an eyebrow.

Gadon smiled. "Good question. Many of the gangs fight because increased Sith authority brings a rather totalitarian state too close to their illegal pursuits for comfort. The Sith would clear out drugs and slave trading, put down the arms trade, and institute martial law. That is, if they follow the pattern of their previous conquests. With Malak rather than Revan at the helm, they might just slaughter every able-bodied male on Taris, just in case."

"And these things are bad for you, I presume," Revan drawled. "Your tidy little business would come to an end, as would your arrangement with the garrison, access to street cameras, and tacit permission to trade in arms."

"Well, you're right. But we are loyal to the Republic," Gadon emphasized. "We would fight the Sith on principle."

"Principles don't make wars," Revan countered. "Only power does that. The Sith would not negotiate with you because you are criminals, so that leaves you no choice but to fight. You won't convince me that you're doing this for selfless reasons, Gadon. But you could maybe convince your men that you're fighting for the Repubic's lofty ideals, if they need a cause other than fear."

Carth had been watching this exchange closely, and he finally butted in with heat in his voice. "What do you propose they do? Surrender?"

"Don't be an idiot," Revan scoffed. "Gadon has the right idea. The Sith might kill everyone of fighting age in the city after an unconditional surrender, like they did on Serroco. After all, without a battle they have no demonstration of their superiority to discourage rebellion. They would either slaughter or enslave them and distribute them sparsely throughout their territories, but Malak doesn't strike me as the merciful type. And as for us, we would be the first to be interrogated and slain for our loyalties to the Republic. But, you do realize we cannot win here, right? Without the Republic army, Taris is lost, and there has been no chance to request reinforcements."

"With the fleet currently in orbit, the Sith could deploy sixty-thousand soldiers, but they would lack the manpower to hold up their blockade," Gadon explained. "A force that size has little hope of securing an entire world."

"You don't think?" Revan mused, smirking. "I could think of a few ways to do it, assuming that I did not care for the condition of the world once the battles ended. But it doesn't matter. So, you plan to fight."

"Yes," Gadon replied, steely. "And win."

"Well, far be it from me to dissuade you from such a course," Revan finally settled, leaning back in his chair. "But we cannot stay here."

Bastila straightened up. "We need all the allies we can muster."

"The Hidden Beks have helped us-thanks to you, Gadon. And we returned the favor. But, you have no ships capable of breaking the blockade. And we are persona non grata among the Sith," Revan reasoned, both to Gadon and Bastila. "We need to start working on an ex-filtration strategy. That doesn't involve tangling with the Sith for months on end."

"And what do you propose?" Carth wondered, resentfully. "Walk up to the Sith officers and ask for the launch codes?"

Revan raised an eyebrow. It could work, given his name and identity. Along with the red lightsaber, he might manage to bluff his way into the base and confront the planetary governor. But, it was a very risky proposition, and he didn't think that it was a very wise use of his time. Not when the governor he might find there could be Malak himself. "No. But you have a good question. We will die if we remain on Taris. Eventually the rebellion will fail. They will fail either now or when Sith reinforcements arrive. Worst case, the planet burns completely from orbital bombardment, if the Sith give up on the idea of occupation. Either way, we're running out of time, and a ground campaign without orbital support is doomed to failure."

"The fleet that destroyed the Endar Spire was not very large. It was a wolf pack, a hunter-killer group, not an occupation force. Only three cruisers, a battlecruiser, and seven support vessels. That is not enough power to destroy the entire planet," Carth reasoned. "If the Sith don't resort to weapons of mass destruction, then I think guerrilla groups have a good chance of stalling their advance."

"A small fleet like that is good enough if you have the time to spend carpet-bombing, which they do," Revan retorted. "But it's good that it isn't a full battle group. Because they don't have the ships to form a total blockade, we have a snowball's chance in hell of breaking through. Their efforts must be focused over population centers at high orbit, and their men would have secured public spaceports on the surface if that were the case. Once we're in the air, we can fly low into the wastelands and break orbit there."

"Well," Gadon stood. "I can't be of much help to you about ships and blockades. There are matters for those of us going to fight that must be attended to. If I might suggest that you make contact with the Exchange, there might be a deal you could cut for access to a private launching pad."

"We'll keep that in mind," Bastila agreed, rising as well. Zaerdra left with Gadon, and the rest of them looked across the table at each other in an oppressive silence. Revan rubbed the bridge of his nose and muttered under his breath about dead-men walking.

"You didn't run off to the Sith," Carth observed.

"Do you think I'm suicidal?" Revan laughed ruefully. "According to Bastila, Malak was the one that put me in this condition. Practically killed me, the bastard."

"Unfortunately, you're looking rather chipper for a dead guy."

"Alright!" Bastila interjected. "I'm glad that you decided to work with us, Revan."

Revan pursed his lips. "I'm here because you know who I am, Bastila. Don't forget that, because of you, I have nowhere else to go. That does not mean that I respect you or your Order. It doesn't mean that there aren't consequences for what the Jedi have done."

"Just what is that supposed to mean?" Carth exclaimed, stepping forward aggressively. But the Jedi pushed him back, hand on his chest.

"Be silent," her voice cracked like a whip, and the military man stared at her, incredulous.

"Revan," Bastila breathed, turning back to him. "I'm sorry. You probably don't believe me, but I never imagined that this would be the way things went. And I can see the anguish in you...I understand where you're coming from. But we can't.."

"You do?" Revan cut across her at once. "Really? Well, I wish I could _remember_ where it is that I've come from. But, since that isn't happening, thanks to you, we might as well just crack on with trying to survive this pathetic waste of a planet. You know eventually Malak will stop sending my old students and come down here himself. Then, I wonder if you'll be glad you've _crippled_ your only chance at defeating the Dark Lord of the Sith."

"The Jedi will bring him down," Bastila declared. "As we brought you down, Revan."

He snarled, and his eyes flashed. "Wrong. Malak was the one that killed me, Jedi, according to your own account of the battle. I might not remember much of Malak, but I've seen power, and _you_ don't have it. But, if you think you're so strong, then you can fight him, when he comes. I'll enjoy the gruesome show." With this, he unclasped the red lightsaber and tossed it to the woman, who caught it easily in her hand. He saw her shudder as she grasped it, eyes wide. Even Carth looked startled at the action, one hand resting on his blaster.

"Why would you give up your weapon?" she breathed.

"If you wished to kill me, in my current state, it would be a matter of the Force. I don't remember how to protect myself against the Force, so the blade means nothing, and unless my body somehow remembers what the mind has forgotten, I would be dead. So, if it makes you more comfortable to be armed in my presence, then for the sake of our survival, wield that sword," Revan replied sharply. "Besides, you'll need it in the coming days, I guarantee you that much. What are our options?"

It was a testament to their sorry situation that they all stared at each other blankly for a very long time. "Dammit," Revan sighed, sitting down once again. He glanced at Mission, who had been watching up until his point with her hands tightly clasped in front of her thighs. "What do you know about the Exchange?"

"Not much," she replied. "There's a mercenary on their roll that hangs out around here. Big, big guy. Goes by Canderous Ordo, a Mandalorian."

"This lightsaber is evil," Bastila suddenly interjected, apparently only just recovered from the shock. "I am uncomfortable keeping it."

"Well, then give it back," Revan exclaimed. "I don't care what you do. But if you expect me to rescue you again, then think again. I'm beginning to regret our first go around of 'save the damsel in distress.'"

"You should not use it either," Bastila declared. "The Dark Side is powerful in this sword. Where did you get it?"

"Some Dark Jedi on the _Endar Spire,"_ Revan waved his hand. "I killed him when he charged at me without regard for his own safety. He recognized my face as he died."

The Jedi's features darkened. "Then he must have been one of your followers from the Mandlorian Wars. Younger Sith don't know what you look like because you wore that mask."

"He died easily enough. He was a fool who underestimated an armed opponent, thought himself invincible," Revan muttered. "Regardless of his identity, his weapon will serve us well. I cannot fight lightsabers with a sword very often and expect to live."

"As you said, any Sith could simply destroy you with the Force," Bastila reasoned. "Was that not your reasoning for giving it to me?"

"I managed well enough against the pair that had come for you at the race. Besides, I gave it to you so that you might _use_ it, or aren't you Jedi supposed to be warriors?" Revan exploded. "We're going to have a hard enough time surviving this without needless restrictions. So, pardon me if that weapon offends your delicate sensibilities, we keep it. Now, will you be using it, or am I?"

"Fine," Bastila closed her fingers around it and dropped her hand. "I shall."

Revan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "We'll just have to get in touch with this Canderous fellow. See what the Exchange thinks of the Sith occupation. I imagine they are in the same situation as the Hidden Beks, save for the fact that the Exchange has the power and money to bribe the Sith officers into looking the other way, so they might not be inclined to enter open war."

"Sith are notoriously difficult to bribe," Bastila mused. "The Exchange has not done well in their territory."

"Well, it seems that the Republic ought to learn a few things from these Sith," Revan jeered. "They at least have a healthy respect for law and order."

"And slaughter, don't forget that," Carth piped up, looking sharply at Revan. "Unmitigated destruction. Warmongering."

"Please," Revan waved his hand. "This is war. People die."

Carth practically exploded out of his seat, knocking the heavy durasteel furniture away. Revan surged up with him, deflecting a wild blow that might have broken his jaw. He shoved the soldier away with a deft kick to the solar plexus and watched as the other man careened against the wall of the small office.

"Fuck you, you bastard!" Carth roared. "Is that what you said when you bombed Telos? Is that how you justified Malachor V? ' _People die._ ' HA! Well, if it's all so simple, why don't we just take everything you love and...and..."

Revan only stared, watching as the man blinked hard, noticing for the first time that there were tears of sorrow and rage in his eyes. Bastila seemed shocked as well, but she was leaning forward to intervene if they fought again. "I don't remember those names," he replied, brushing off his jacket. "But I'm sure, as a Captain, that there is enough blood on your own hands for you to understand warfare, Carth. You never struck me as a naïve man."

Carth spat at his feet. "The difference between us, Revan, is that I've slain my enemies in combat, and you slaughtered yours as they surrendered before you."

"I won't answer an accusation for something I don't remember," Revan barked. "You'd do well to remember the punishment I received for whatever crimes you think I've committed, Carth. Perhaps it might make you sleep better at night, knowing just what the Jedi have done to my mind."

"I wish they'd killed you," Carth retorted sharply. "I wish I didn't have to see your smug face. I wish I didn't have to deal with the fact that you're our best fucking chance of getting out of this situation with our heads still attached to our shoulders. But I'd sleep better if you were dead."

Revan laughed hollowly. "They ought to have killed me. That might have been considered mercy, given the state of my mind and body at the time. But they didn't. We live in a reality where the Jedi have _mercy_ , where I am alive—albeit crippled—and where we have to work _together,_ or _die_ together. Which would you prefer, hm?"

"Fine," Carth relented, looking incredibly tired. He rubbed his eyes and straightened up. "I'll let you figure out what the hell we're going to do then. All I've done is follow you around on this mission anyway."

He left. Bastila followed him and shook her head, before glancing at Mission. "May I speak with Revan alone?"

"As long as you promise it won't be so exciting," the girl shrugged, already moving towards the elevator. "I'll go find some food. Didn't really eat at the cantina."

Revan tensed up when they were alone, facing the Jedi with narrow eyes. "What is it?"

"Talk to me, Revan," Bastila said, falling into her chair, crossing her legs. "Tell me what's happened since the battle on the _Endar Spire_."

"Why?" he asked. "We crashed in the Upper City. We fought down a level, met the Beks. Fought the Vulkars as a favor, went to the race, and rescued you."

"I felt tremors through the Force during my imprisonment," Bastila admitted. "The collar made things difficult, but there was a terrible tumult for several days. I couldn't understand what was happening, but then we shared the dream. I think you must be the source of those disturbances."

"I see," Revan nodded, slowly sitting down. "You're looking for this Dark Side of yours then. Checking to see if I'm still as weak as you think."

Batila sighed. "We don't have to be enemies, Revan."

"Why do I have the feeling we've had this conversation before?" he retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. She actually laughed, harsh and nervous. "We have, haven't we. How did that turn out?"

"Well...it was the day you 'died,' so to speak," Bastila admitted carefully. "We fought through your whole ship only to discover that you'd let us reach the bridge, so you could speak with us. Reason with us. You were reluctant to fight against the Jedi, you knew each of the us there by name. You spoke to us like an old friend. You said we didn't have to fight."

"So why did you kill me, or make the attempt?" Revan asked, will all the appearance of calm. "Why fight an unwilling man?"

Bastila wrinkled her nose. "You were lying, obviously. The Sith do not suffer the Jedi to live. The Dark cannot withstand the Light."

"Is that what they told you, or is that what you believe?" Revan asked pointedly. "Because that sounds like some the kind of uncompromising, reflexive teaching that comes with the Jedi."

The Jedi shook her head. "The point is: you haven't really changed. The best way to make sure that the alterations to your mind didn't drive you to madness was to make you similar to how you've always been. You may not remember your life, but you're still the man that was once a Jedi, someone that the whole Order looked up to, a leader that took the Republic to victory in a war they had no business winning. We don't know how you fell to the Dark Side, Revan, but I'm here to ensure that it doesn't happen again. I need you to trust me."

"Did you ever wonder if you made me into what I became, the first time around as well? Or maybe I was always destined to be the man that stood against you," Revan wondered aloud, leaning forward. "And if I was such a model Jedi, why weren't there more Jedi fighting in the Mandalorian Wars? I read that there were few of us, then."

"What do you remember of those wars?" Bastila breathed.

"Nothing! Like everything else that you've taken, it's gone," Revan snapped. "I see blood, jungles, and old scars. But I read a lot of history while I was recovering, I saw all the reports about the Mandalorian Wars, trying to understand my fragmented dreams. I remember Dxun the best. I touched the scars on my face and it all came back to me. And you know what I read? The Jedi _abandoned_ me! They exiled me, and everyone that followed me! So, is that who you want me to be, then? The Exile? A pariah?"

"The Council was concerned that the stresses of warfare would drag Jedi to the Dark Side. They felt that there was more danger in fighting than in waiting. That was why you defied them, because you wanted to _protect_ the weak," Bastila explained tiredly. "I've had this conversation a thousand times with a thousand people."

"Yes, I'm sure," Revan drawled. "Because ever since I left, the Jedi have been forced to confront a fundamental issue with their Order: cowardice. But they didn't change, that much was clear from the Code I was given in recovery and from the way that your Order treated me when I didn't know who I was. And now you are at war, anyway, facing the very thing that paralyzed you with terror so many years ago, but now it's so much worse because you _waited_."

"We are at war with the very people that we warned not to leave," Bastila retorted coldly. "Our former brothers and sisters, men and women that trained beside us, studied with us, debated with us. That was the tragedy of your fall, Revan. The scars left by the schism of the Jedi Order may never heal."

"You keep saying that I fell like I had no control," Revan sighed. "But I'm saying to you that it doesn't look that way from the history. I don't feel like I could have been weak enough to succumb to whatever madness you think I might be susceptible to. A better explanation is that the Jedi forced me to choose that path by refusing to stand behind me."

"The Dark Side isn't always obvious," Bastila replied, and he scoffed. She rushed ahead, "It isn't black and white. Its influence is seductive, subtle. The Jedi saw your actions, and they violated our Code. How could we have responded favorably without undermining our very own teachings?"

"Why don't you tell me about this Dark Side that so terrifies you," he eventually demanded. "Or else I'll just go on believing that it's an excuse that you're using to demonize your opponents."

Bastila hesitated. "I don't know if that would be helpful to you."

"How can I recognize it if I do not understand it? Aren't you afraid I might succumb to it again?" he asked her sarcastically. "Well, go on then."

They stared at each other for a moment, before Bastila sighed and nodded. "The Force is a power that lives in all creatures. It flows through us, empowers us, gives us our strength. The Jedi understand this power and use it to preserve order and peace. But the Force can be dangerous. Seductive. Oftentimes, the power afforded to users drives them to seek personal gain and advancement. They pervert the Force to their own will. Instead of servants, they seek to become masters. This is what we call the Dark Side."

"I read those words somewhere," Revan nodded, once. "Well, then rest assured I have not encountered the Dark Side since I awakened in the care of the Jedi on Dantooine."

"How do you know for certain?"

"Well, I haven't used the Force," he reasoned. "There could be no perversion."

Bastila ran a hand over her face wearily. "It isn't that simple. Often-times a Force-sensitive can be unaware of his use of the Force. Have you ever reacted to things before they happened? Perhaps blocked blaster bolts with a lightsaber or absorbed a Force attack in combat? Or maybe you've gotten impressions about people's thoughts without looking at their face?"

"Well isn't that a convenient alternative to willful, chosen evil. Now you're saying it can be accidental, unwitting," Revan observed sarcastically even as he flinched. "This makes it easier for you to demonize your opponents, no matter how reasonable they might seem. First, of course, claim that their lying, perhaps deceived by some mysterious power, deluded, and insensible. Second, use any case of strange behavior or unexplainable events to support your case that they're making use of some wicked unseen power. Then nobody thinks twice when you discredit them, isolate their supports, and otherwise ostracize them."

"The Jedi exist to stand against evil," Bastila breathed. "This isn't some big conspiracy! I'm just answering your question."

"Well what do you expect me to think, woman?" Revan hissed. "You've lied to me for every second of my new memories. And from my old life, all I know is that you were the one standing over me when it ended!"

The Jedi sighed. "What would you have done, then? The Jedi Council had to make an impossible choice. When I saved your life...we couldn't turn around and execute you. That is not our way."

"If I had my enemies at my mercy, defeated in battle, then I would _kill_ them, obviously," Revan declared. "At least then they would have the honor of dying for the cause that they _chose_. I would have hoped that the Jedi would have granted me that same consideration, rather than letting me live to forget entirely about my convictions. And from a practical standpoint, a dead enemy doesn't ever stand the chance of stabbing you in the back! What were you hoping to accomplish? Did you expect that I'd live the rest of my life ignorant of my past, that I'd ignore the burning desire to find out what was taken from me? Did you think I'd just swallow everything you told me without thinking? Did you think that you could use me to fight your enemies, like you've apparently used me before, hoping that the Sith would put me down when you were too cowardly to do it yourself? Did you think that I wouldn't live long enough to hate you for what you did!?"

"No," Bastila answered shortly.

"Then maybe you _counted_ on my remembering," he breathed. "But now I'm weak enough that the interrogations shall be in your favor. Is that what awaits me when we flee from Taris? A cold cell and a torturer's knife?"

"No!" she repeated vehemently, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "For the love of the Force, where do you think these things up? The Jedi thought to save you, Revan!"

"I don't want to hear the lies; tell me the goddamn truth!" he roared. "Tell me why, if you wiped my mind, I feel like there's something old crawling out of the back of my mind! Tell me why I still remember all the pain, all the worst things, but nothing good, nothing to justify the death and blood!"

"I don't know!" Bastila barked. He fell back, deflated, closing his eyes. "I can't answer you, Revan. These are questions that you must pose to the ones that performed the act. I was only appointed to watch you. That was my mission on the Spire."

"Why?" Revan asked tiredly. "What did they hope to gain? I have nothing. I _am_ nothing."

She didn't answer him, and he looked up, only for her to deny knowing the answers he sought. But she was lying again, and he could feel it, even though he couldn't see any obvious tell.

"I worry for you," Bastila finally spoke into the silence. "You seem so full of rage, on the edge of control. I suppose what I was really wondering is how you'd been handling all the violence of the last week. Bloodshed whets the appetite of the Dark Side, makes its voice more insistent."

"Is that right?" Revan whispered, pursing his lips. "Well, I've done my share of killing since we crashed. Killed some Sith. Killed the Vulkars. Killed the rakghouls. Killed slavers. Killed the slaves."

"What?"

Revan waved his hand. "I don't have to explain myself to you. People die. And until today I was operating under the assumption that I was a mercenary, a man hired typically to kill people. Not a very smart cover story if you wanted to keep my hands clean, Jedi."

Bastila sighed. "I had hoped that you might discover something worth fighting for in the Republic. That some of the old fire I'd all witnessed would return if you could only see the battles."

"I'm much too cynical for patriotism, Bastila," Revan sighed. "Frankly the act of killing is more attractive to me than the cause. And I bet that's scary for you, then."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why do you feel this way?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you enjoy death? Does it make you feel powerful?" Bastila asked pointedly.

"Yes," Revan replied simply. "I'm good at it, too. Better than anyone I've met so far. And when I killed my first man on the _Endar Spire,_ I realized that victory was sweet, so I don't shy away from fighting or from blood."

Bastila nodded carefully, fidgeting uncomfortably. "Is it the death that satisfies or the battle itself?"

"I haven't really thought about it..."

"Then think!" Bastila suddenly hissed. "Don't just _do,_ but think. You are a man, not a machine or an animal."

"I should say the same to you, but I suppose I already have." Revan set his jaw. "It's the battle, then," he decided, remembering the woman that he'd fought at the Vulkar base. That had been a true victory. The slaughter that preceded it had only been enjoyable for the adrenaline, for the rush of taking on so many and winning. And as for the Dark Jedi, that test of skill had been the greatest yet...but his victory there rang hollow. It felt more like a tragedy, and a dark feeling crawled in the back of his mind when he remembered it. "The rush of combat, the test of skill and strength. But I don't mind the killing, either."

"Would it bother you if a comrade was slain? Carth, for example," Bastila continued her interrogation. Revan shrugged.

"I saved his life before," he replied. "Got himself shot, so I tended the wound, at personal risk. But that was necessary; I would have been alone if he had died."

Bastila sighed. "I'm sorry, you probably feel like this is some kind of interrogation. That's what it is, honestly. I just...I know you don't believe me about the Dark Side, but these are all things that point to its presence."

"What? An affinity for combat?" Revan scoffed. "Then it is no wonder you Jedi are losing a war."

"No, not exactly. It is the enjoyment of it, the desire for conflict, the lack of remorse for death, the increasingly instinctual responses as opposed to well-considered actions. The Dark Side always strives for control, most often by forcing its users to rely upon it more and more. And there are more obvious signs, physical marks, such as paling skin, darkening veins, glowing orange or yellow eyes. All of these things have been witnessed in you before," Bastila explained patiently. "That was why it was a surprise to me that you returned. That you gave up the lightsaber. I didn't expect you to be rational, not after our argument in the garage."

"This is as rational as I get," Revan replied with a shrug, but his eyes were cold and focused. "If I _was_ threatened by this Dark Side of yours, then what sorts of symptoms are there? Why are you so afraid of it? If all it takes is a bit of violence to make a Sith, then every soldier in the army would be a threat to the Jedi."

"Well, you need to have the Force, and usually you have to consciously use the Dark Side for your own benefit for it to start affecting you," Bastila pointed out. "Since you have before, the Jedi didn't know how you might manage when you woke up. That was why so many Jedi were assigned to the Endar Spire, in case the Dark Side was as persistent as we feared. But you're right, there are cases of Force blind individuals experiencing some of the aforementioned effects as well. And...the Jedi believe that the Dark Side eventually claims control and ownership of those that seek to use its power, driving them for the purposes of evil, chaos, and bloodshed for its own sake rather than their original goals. In history, Jedi have fallen for noble causes and turned traitor, bringing the galaxy to its knees. Like you did."

Revan nodded. "So, you'd characterize it like dementia then. It's some kind of slow-acting, deteriorating condition in which I'll lose control of myself piece by piece."

"Yes," Bastila nodded, looking somewhat pale.

"And how many people have ever recovered from the Dark Side?" he wondered.

The Jedi shook her head. "No one," she breathed. "Once fallen, the Dark Side forever dominates your mind and body."

"Well, then I never fell, and have not fallen," Revan decided softly, but firmly. "I told you that I read my history. Revan established a government in the Outer Rim, in conquered territories. He ratified a constitution, appointed officials and held elections, organized a military, raised a fleet. He built cities, space stations, warships, and weapons. And his actions are not the thoughtless bloodlust of someone you claim to be consumed by the Dark Side. Defeated territories were allowed to keep their local governments, but reformed under the Sith Empire, devoted their resources to the cause, and sat under martial law for five years."

"There was the destruction of Telos," Bastila pointed out. "And occupied territories are usually pacified through a long, bloody guerrilla campaign against partisans."

"One planet," Revan nodded. "One slaughter. As for the rest—this _is_ war, Bastila. The Jedi are fools if they think they can engage in warfare with their high-minded ideals and come through it unscathed. I won't claim to understand all of warfare, but from my experience so far, it's not a pretty, easy thing. It doesn't just get tied up with a pretty bow and concluded at peace talks, it doesn't end in parades. Not without shattered cities, broken fleets, burnt land. So perhaps I succumbed to some dark temptation in the past and razed an entire planet to satisfy my demons. Or perhaps one of my subordinates did. Or perhaps it was strategic, designed to avoid a drawn-out civil war. Whatever the case, a single occurrence does not a pattern make."

"I don't really care about before," Bastila shook her head. "I'm concerned about you now. You are the same man, but you don't have that cause anymore. You don't have your accomplishments or loyalties. There are no oaths, no friendships, no authorities. Nothing restrains you. But you shouldn't have the same pull, the same corruption, the same shackles. You're free."

"Except for my past," Revan replied softly. "People like Carth and Malak aren't going to leave me alone because I don't remember my past deeds. I am Revan, and to them _that_ is what matters."

"What matters is that you remain firmly in control of yourself," Bastila finally said. "You admitted that you don't know the Dark Side or the Force. I can help you recognize the dangers. I can help you understand what's at stake. The Force is a great responsibility, Revan, and you have it, whether you accept it or not."

For a long moment neither of them spoke, and Revan searched her face, looking for the hints of deceit that he'd seen before, but there was nothing but genuine concern. And that was the thing that puzzled him the most. What reason would she have, save for simple gratitude, to care about him at all? Or was he just another part of her mission, just a task that she had to complete?

"Okay," Revan relented, nodding sharply. Whatever the case might be, he'd discover it in time, and this would give him plenty of time to understand her more deeply. Perhaps reveal her own weaknesses. "I'll tell you what I've done on Taris."

He did, and the Jedi watched him stoically throughout the account. He left out nothing, including his thoughts on the rakghouls and the slaughter of the slaves in the sewers, and he caught the shadows that flickered in her eyes, the fear. So when he concluded with the battle in the Vulkar base, he flashed his teeth in a grin and sat up.

"So, am I doomed?" he joked, looking down at his shoes.

Bastila breathed in, out. "No," she finally said. "I...I don't necessarily agree with many of the choices you've made. But that doesn't make them wrong. What concerns me is this lack of regard for life. I can't _make_ you value other people, Revan. I can only say that there's something beautiful in life and encourage you to look for it before you resort to violence in every case. I would urge you to be a protector and not a predator."

Revan nodded carefully. "Okay," he agreed. Standing up, he closed his eyes for a moment and rolled his tongue in his mouth. Then he turned back to Bastila and met her eyes seriously. "I have serious problems with the Jedi, Bastila. How they've treated me...past and present. It wasn't right. I should be dead. I _am_ dead, according to that dream we shared. But I suppose that I owe them a chance to explain. So I won't take it out on you, regardless of your role in what happened. I want to speak to the ones that did this. I want answers."

"Alright," Bastila agreed cautiously, hearing much of the old Revan in these words and seeing hints of the regal man in Revan's stance now. "I'm not sure how they'll react to you, knowing that you know your own name."

"If they strike me down, then they will have set things as they ought to be. That is not to say that I would not fight," Revan replied, shrugging. "But what do I really have to live for now, except revenge? I know that Malak betrayed me. I guess that makes us allies for the moment."

"We'd better work on surviving the next few days before you make any grandiose plans," Bastila murmured, rising. Revan laughed and stepped into the elevator, Bastila following. They didn't speak another word as it descended, and he walked away from her when the doors were open, towards Mission who was sitting on the crates in the garage, gnawing on a ration bar. Bastila watched him go, furrowing her brow as she wondered what he might see in the teenager that caught his attention.

Bastila admitted some concern as she watched them, the girl smiling and treating him as a friend. There was something stiff in his posture, some hidden motive that he was holding back in their interactions, and Bastila could tell that Mission noticed it as well, but chose to ignore it. Bastila could only hope that it didn't prove to be a corrupting influence on either of them, since she couldn't very well separate them without good reason. And so far there was no reason.

As they drew practice blades and set about the task of sparring, she turned away and went looking for Carth Onasi. It wasn't hard to find him, she just had to follow the subtle traces of bitterness in the Force.


	14. Chapter 13

A/N: This will be the last update until December. I'm off again to college this week and won't have as much time to write between classes and other extracurriculars. Also, I'll have time to finish off the story and keep a regular update schedule with more careful editing. I will probably get around to hunting typos and things in earlier chapters over the next couple of weeks/months. Anyway, sorry to disappoint with the interruption of my regular updates, but needs must, I suppose. Anyway, see y'all in December.

Chapter 13

"If they're fighting, then we might as well join them," Carth advised, watching the Hidden Beks gearing up for war. They packed for a fighting retreat, divided into cells led by experienced members, veterans from the Mandalorian Wars or ex-Republic soldiers, and listened to a rousing speech by Gadon Thek, which Revan scoffed at and proceeded to polish his vribroswords with more rigor than strictly necessary. Revan's crew, such as they were, had gathered their belongings, convinced the Bek provisioner to provide them with rations and water, and huddled away from the action in a loose circle.

"Why?" Bastila wondered.

Revan shrugged and stilled his arm. "Makes sense to me," he offered. "At least for the first battle. We're looking for a mercenary, so he's probably going to be fighting at some point. And if we're all going the same way, might as well have friendly guns at our back until we're out of the hot zone."

Carth narrowed his eyes, unhappy about agreeing with Revan on anything, but shrugged. "We're thinking along the same lines."

"It will be dangerous," Bastila reminded them both. "They outnumber us, they have better training, they have better equipment. There could be Dark Jedi leading their advance. Or Malak himself might command the assault. We could just move out ahead of the battle, get a head start."

"I want to fight," Mission declared, quietly. Everyone glanced her way, and Zaalbar roared an affirmative. The young woman crossed her arms. "I think I owe them my gun, for all the years that I've been a Bek."

"Have you ever been in a battle before?" Carth asked her sharply. "And I don't mean little skirmishes against your gang rivals. I mean a real battle."

"I was like nine years old when the Mandalorians conquered Taris, and ten when the Republic took it back," Mission pointed out acerbically. "No, I haven't. Obviously."

Revan pursed his lips and cut across the brewing argument. "She'll do fine. I'll watch her back."

"Oh, that would make me feel better about things, having someone like you at my back," Carth retorted sarcastically.

"I trust him," Mission shot back. "Besides, he did save your life, although i'm sure he's regretting it. If we're fighting, then where do we go?"

Revan sighed though his nose and ran a hand through his hair. "You know the layout of this maze? We can't fight on the main street with the rest, that will be a slaughter, and I'd prefer that all of us come out of this intact."

Mission swung her backpack around and pulled out two thin datapads. The first displayed a map of the local area, and the second was an overlay showing old, walled-in streets and maintenance passages. Revan scanned it quickly and glanced at Carth. "Look at this," he gestured. "The Sith will probably descend in gunships along these shafts; they go all the way to the surface. They could breach here, and here. The elevator, too, but that's such a choke-point they'll probably hit there with Dark Jedi."

"If I was in command I'd come through there," Carth pointed out another shaft, further back, but wider. "Two gunships at a time. That's forty men in each wave."

"If they've got the men they could do all four," Revan sighed. "The Beks can't hold the street with that many access points, but they'll have to set up barricades, at least here and here. At each crossroads, and perhaps in between."

"Yep," Carth nodded, popping the 'p.' "Sith assault teams can blast through the walls, bypass the main street. That takes the fight along these side passages. And the gunships will tear through the main thoroughfare, scattering defenders into a rout. Then the Sith march in formation down the center line, break the largest resistance force all at once."

"So we should fight on the flanks," Revan concluded. "That way, when the battle's lost, we retreat with the surviving Beks past the old Vulkar base, towards Reagano."

Carth shook his head. "That old base is where we'll die. We've got to hit and run, shadow their advance. I saw we take a swoop bike and go around, through the maintenance shaft there. When they hit the las tline of defense, we can punch through or slip by, either way."

Revan saw where he was pointing and his eyes lit up. "That old service passage opens into the old apartments east of here."

"The Sith will breach and clear all these apartments. If we're waiting for them, we can ambush a platoon, maybe twenty men. They'll call for reinforcements, which come along the main road there," Carth guessed, waving his hand. "But we'll push east, hit the back of their front along that side-street. Punch through, rendezvous with the Beks at the old Vulkar hideout. That draws away some of the assault."

Revan nodded sharply. "Sounds good. We'll probably die."

"Thanks for that vote of confidence, idiot," Carth hissed, adjusting his pack and wincing at the ache in his chest. "With Bastila, they don't have a force that can stop us when we've got momentum. Besides, I've seen you iwth that sword of yours."

"Except Dark Jedi," Bastila cut across. "If we encounter a Sith, I might get tied down in a duel."

"Make it quick, then," Revan replied, shaking his head. "That's as good of a plan as we're going to get, without knowing more about their movements. Mission, did your friends clue you in to the Bek's comms?"

"Yes," Mission nodded. "Well, some of them. I don't have the channel for active orders or positions, but they have me on a line with their scouts, and I can report in to the sergeant in charge of the reconnaissance."

"That's good enough. Everybody suited up? Got ammo? Knives?" Revan glanced around, a small grin on his face. "Water?"

"I am ready," Zaalbar growled. "Show me our foes."

"Alright big guy. Let's go get a bike."

* * *

Carth knelt in almost pitch blackness, shuffling on his knees with a blaster rifle in his arms, through the low, cramped maintenance shaft. "Damn crawlspace is designed for droids," he hissed when he bonked his head on a metal strut for the third time.

"The Beks have contact half a mile down the street," Mission reported. "Gunships blasted everything along the street along their advance, like you said. The Beks are retreating past their second barricade."

"It's been fifteen fucking minutes!" Revan exclaimed with disgust.

"The wonders of superior firepower," Carth grumbled. "And superior training. We have to move."

The wookiee, ironically, was the only one that was completely fine with the maintenance shaft. His eyes were keen in the dark, so he led the way, surprisingly agile and flexible for his size. Bastila, being the smallest of the group aside from Mission, who brought up the rear, was second in line, holding her lightsaber, unlit, at her side. The pressed on, and Carth began to hear the sounds of a battle echoing along the metal corridor that seemed to be getting tighter the longer they crawled. It was only a two hundred meter stretch, but it felt much longer than that by the time six minutes had shuffled by and Bastila was able to cut through the wall into the apartments.

"The Sith are past the apartments, on the third barricade," Mission whispered. Carth grit his teeth and folded himself throught he opening, carefulyl avoiding the hot edges. When he stood he swept the room, dimly lit by a yellow glowing lamp surrounded by refuse, then proceeded to the door, holding up a fist to still everyone's motions. Mission froze as her feet touched down.

There was a Sith patrol entering the apartments. And another sweeping around the other side. Carth ducked back into the shadows. "Sith. A lot of them. Probably twenty."

Revan emerged from the dark at his side like a ghost and Carth nearly jumped, only just managing to freeze his muscles before embarrassing himself. But he glared. "No time. Let's go."

"Go?" Carth repeated incredulously. But Revan was stalking forward, drawing his sword slowly with a barely audible rasp.

The sounds from the corridor were quiet, steady footfalls. The gentle clinking of plastisteel armor. A subtle humming power cell. Revan activated his energy shield and gestured them forward, glancing back. His eyes gleamed like lamps from the angle of the light, and Carth shuddered at the inhuman sight, tightening his grip on the weapon. Bastila swept forward, silent as a breath of wind, and he wondered how she'd learned to do that.

Then the battle exploded into action. Revan burst into the corridor and gutted a man that Carth hadn't even noticed. There were no cries of surprise, at least nothing audible, but the hasty reports of blaster fire was enough indication of their surprise. Sith armor muffled the voices of the soldiers, so that their call-outs could not be overheard by their enemies. It also made them intimidating, silent, automatons. Machine men. Soulless, ruthless, professional.

Bastila's lightsaber lit with an explosion of light and sound, a throaty reverberation that rattled Carth's gut as he rushed forward, firing past her shoulder in a line of deadly accurate shots, into the platoon of men that Revan was plowing through like a battering ram.

"They're coming around," Mission barked, tightly. She rushed to the corner, and Carth bit off his exclamation of alarm as she opened herself up to a line from the Sith. The shots that lanced her way were intercepted at once by the Jedi, whose stolen Sith weapon screeched in triumph moments before an inhuma leap took Bastila to Revan's side. Carth's heart was pounding at the near miss, but Mission hadn't even noticed how close she'd come to death. Less than a millisecond later and she'd be laid out on the paneled floor.

Carth posted on the opposite corner, saw the Sith rounding the bend, flanking Revan and Bastila in the melee. He opened fire, dropping to a knee, maintaining suppression for two long counts, then he rolled back just as a hail of return fire obliterated the wall he'd been using for cover and scorched the floor. Mission and Zaalbar picked up, the guttural bark of the bowcaster seeming like a death-knoll for the scattered Sith as they ducked away from the fire. Six of their number were laid out in the corridor, crawling weakly, black pitted scorches in their armor. The rest of that platoon had ducked into the apartments or retreated back.

Revan shouted something succinct and alarmed. Then Carth heard a second lightsaber humming asynchronously along Bastila's distinct weapon. He swore and dashed into the corridor, drawing a line of fire from an apartment down the hall. The carnage int eh corridor stunned him, but he only glanced towards Bastila and Revan briefly before focusing on the Sith holed up further down.

"Frag out!" he barked, but held the throw, grabbing the round explosive in his palm, counting down in his head. Two seconds before the blast he lobbed it over. The Sith had hunkered down, but that was their mistake. Civilian walls like these apartments weren't designed for explosives, and only added to the lethal cloud of shrapnel. The explosion deafened him, tearing his cover out of the ground and rolling the garbage dispenser over his shoulders, but it did worse to the rest of the corridor. The central walls had been completely ruined, the ceiling was stripped of its plates. A thick steel beam had collapsed across the center of the corridor.

One of the soldiers had been ripped into four parts as he dashed out of the apartment, likely in a panic upon seeing the trajectory of the throw. His head and upper body were laid beneath the steel beam, helmet shattered and thrown from his face.

Carth shoved the garbage dispenser off his back and turned towards the fight, watching as Bastila dueled magnificently with the Sith. She was dancing, stepping between the corpses like a macabre ballet, deflecting his blows and flowing around his inexorable advance.

Then Revan emerged, rising up from the ground in a lunge, and though the Sith cut his weapon back to intercept, he wasn't fast enough. The point of the emerald steel pierced his robes under the arm and cut through his ribs, lungs, and heart. Revan caught the wrist holding the lightsaber and twisted the weapon free with a deft turn, stnading fully and letting the body fall, sword embedded inside. Then Revan ignited the red lightsaber himself and spat on the ground. There was blood around his lips, in his teeth. And a cut on his forehead was weeping a red tear along the side of his jaw.

Carth moved through the ruiend platoon, and Mission pulled up behind him, looking shaken. Her eyes darted fitfully across the battlefield. "The Beks are falling back again," she said. "To the vulkar base."

"We have to move quickly if we're going to catch up with the advance," Revan declared. "On me."

"No," Bastila cut across. "I'll lead."

For a moment the two lightsaber wielding members of the team glared, then Revan nodded tightly. "Go."

Carth watched the man for a moment as Bastila brushed past him, swinging her lightsaber down to her side as she jogged. Revan met his eyes and raised an eyebrow, lips drawing in a grotesque smile that was marred by his bleeding lips. "Damn Sith threw me," he offered. "Fucking space-wizards. Let's go."

He rushed after the Jedi. Carth followed them, looking over his shoulder at Mission and the wookiee. Of the two, Mission was certainly the more uneasy, still looking like a frightened rabbit. And a little pale. "You good?" Carth asked her as they posted up at the door to the apartments. Bastila swung into the street, but was alone. Revan followed her after a moment and they rushed towards the battle, marked by a glowing orange light.

"I'm not hurt," Mission replied. "The Beks were met by another gang. They're retaliating, pushing back. The intersection ahead."

"Contact front!" Carth bellowed, spotting the gleam of Sith armor. Bastila shouted a war-cry and launched herself over the distance of probably twenty meters, spinning in the air like a missile. She hit the middle of the Sith formation before they could brace, and a thundering echo resounded throughout the side-street, shaking the walls.

"Rear!" Mission screeched, firing blind at their backs.

"Move! Move!" Carth roared over the sudden chaos, pushing her ahead of him and running to the side as he poured blaster fire behind him. Zaalbar roared, passing both of them and gripping the sides of a destroyed swoop with his paws. Mission and Carth passed him just as he hauled the hunk of smoking metal into the air, probably two thousand pounds of scrap metal, slamming it down behind them like a gate.

Awed by the sight, Carth staggered forward, breathing sharply over a pain in his chest. Revan had just met Bastila in the melee ahead and they finished carving up fifteen men like they were nothing, barely breaking a sweat in the effort.

A repetitive, thunderous echo shook the ground. Cannon fire, from gunships. "Down! Get DOWN!"

Mission spun around, eyes wide, and Carth could see the color in her eyes framed perfectly by the white. She wasn't moving…frozen. The explosions tore through the walls ahead of them, ripping up the floor and the ceiling, burning white with plasma discharge. Carth surged up and tackled her, covering her body with his back, rifle forgotten, arms crossed behind his head.

The world erupted into color and heat around him. The deck beneath them bucked and groaned, screeched and howled. A hot wind roared above their heads, scalding Carth's skin. As quickly as it began, it was over, and Carth staggered up, patting out the flames on his jacket, looking down at himself, searching for the wounds that he knew were inevitable.

"Carth!" Mission excplained, standing up, trembling like a leaf in the wind. "You...you're not hurt?"

"Move," Carth breathed. "We have to move!"

"Zaalbar!" Mission looked over Carth's shoulder and he turned. The wookiee was attempting to stand, but there was a pole or a strut of some kind protruding from his shoulder. He was impaled completely, and it seemed that the only thing that had kept it from blowing through his shoulder completely was a cross-tie that had caught the on his shoulderblades.

Incredibly, the wookiee managed to stand, roaring in defiance through the gaping hole that was blown in the wall. The whirring gunship was still there, probably coming back around.

"Run! Forward!" Carth roared, shoving Mission ahead. Zaalbar charged down the street, holding the four-foot pole with one hand and his bowcaster in the other, dangling from his limp arm.

Revan and Bastila were still standing, but Bastila was swaying on her feet. As they approached a shield of some kind shimmered and died. Revan steadied the woman with one hand then brushed past her even as she swayed, pushing towards the battle with determination.

They reached it in moments, as the street behind them exploded under fire once again. They were far enough away that they only staggered this time, didn't fall, but it was close. Mission fell to her knees at the end of the street and Carth stuck his head out, drinking in the slaughter. The Sith had formed a line and were pushing down the street, using wide slats of durasteel banded with ray shields as cover. Over the top, they fired in crossing lines of lethal, cutting plasma fire, driving a scattered, disorganized enemy ahead of them.

Revan was standing in the open, lightsaber burning at his side, watching the carnage. He glanced at the rest of them, and his eyes were glowing orange with the fire, or some other heat that Carth didn't know. It reminded him of the Sith, and his skin crawled at the sight, but he could only stare.

Bastila arrived a moment later, saw him, and her features hardened. "Revan!" she barked.

"We have to break through!" he called. "We can't get trapped here!"

"That's the Vulkar base!" Mission pointed ahead, perhaps a hundred meters down the street. There was a barricade there, manned by defenders with mounted machine-guns and anti-armor rifles. The barricade was open, allowing the retreating mob to pass through it. But it would close if the Sith came too close, and the steady advance seemed unstoppable.

"We have no time! On me!" Revan shouted. Then he turned towards the Sith line, perhaps twenty meters away from the crossroads, where a blaze was howling into the ventilation shafts, burning the steel to a cherry glow.

Mission was shaking from the sounds of gunfire, staring at Zaalbar's injury, then at the fire. Her hands were wringing the rifle in her arms, but Carth wouldn't have counted on her being very capable of fighting with it, not at the moment. She was basically swaying on her feet.

But Revan was running forward, angling his lightsaber across his chest in a line, held in both hands. His shoulder went down, and he bellowed, voice shaking with every pounding step. Carth was transfixed, even as Bastila followed him, weary, resigned. The sound of his voice was overpowering, growing in energy and sound. A guttural quality tinged the cry, and it cut across the battlefield, over the roar of the flames, over the sound of gunfire, over the screaming dead.

The walls were shaking by the time he hit the Sith line. A few had spun to face what they had assumed was some kind of war machine for the unearthly howl that it had issued, but the a terrible horror seemed to fill them when they realized that it wasn't a machine. It was a man. It was Revan. It was a Sith.

Carth couldn't believe his eyes as their discipline shattered. The line froze in place, uncertain, and then he crashed into them like a hammer into glass. His weapon arced around him in a fan of red light and four men fell to the deck, cut clean through.

"Mission!" he barked, pointing with his whole arm. "Fire! Fire!"

Then he hefted his rifle and followed his own command, ignoring the ex Dark Lord and the Jedi. He had seen Force-users do more incredible things, had watched men bring down starships with a gesture, had felt entire blocks shake at the rage of a single Sith warrior. The Sith soldiers did not recover nearly as well as Carth, scattering under his fire as they tried to turn their barricades towarsd the new threat.

Then the fleeing gang members turned back and opened fire, standing in the open, recklessly, all traces of fear forgotten. Carth would have gaped in shock at this development if he hadn't just seen one man shatter the resolve of an entire company of soldiers. As things stood the battle had turned from a one-sided rout to a slaughter, and in their favor.

The Sith fell back towards the blaze, scattered into the smoke, and Carth shepherded Mission and Zaalbar ahead of him at a sprint. Revan was standing in the middle of the street, boot on some poor sop's chest, leveling his lightsaber towards the man's throat, but Bastila could handle him. Carth had his eyes set on safety.

When they staggered through the barricade at the Vulkar base, they were met by a ragged cheer. It rose up from the defenders first, carried by the exhausted guerrillas that were strewn throughout the main atrium. It was such a heartfelt cry that Carth felt tears sting his eyes as he ducked his head. It was wordless, but its meaning wasn't lost upon him. It was hope, it was light, it was victory.

Revan and Bastila met them inside the base. "We have to keep moving," Revan declared the moment he saw them. "Keep moving east."

"Why?" Mission breathed. "Zaalbar needs help."

"The Sith aren't going to stop now," Revan hissed. "They'll be back in elss than an hour, by my reckonign. Those gunships will destroy this entire outpost."

"They wouldn't dare," Gadon's voice cut across the argument. He was standing, flanked by Zaerdra and another Bek officer, both of them looking...well, a little crispy. The edges of their uniforms were scorched. "This base is constructed around the main supports of a high-rise. They can't blast through here like they did on that street. It would collapse the entire structure."

"They will," Revan replied. "We keep moving."

Gadon sighed and nodded. "I thank you for your efforts this day, then. And I wish you well on your journey, Revan."

Carth narrowed his eyes and Revan halted in his steps, turning back with a sever frown. "You know my name?"

"Know it? I fought with you, Revan, once before. On Taris. Against the Mandalorians," Gadon exclaimed. "I wondered why you hadn't recognized me...but I suppose you've had many battles and seen many faces."

"That was how you knew I'd succeed against the Vulkars," Revan accused.

"Of course," Gadon exclaimed. "I knew that there is nothing in this galaxy that can stand up to _you,_ certainly not some foolish gangbangers."

"Well, thanks for that," Revan replied shortly. "And you're welcome, I guess. But we're still leaving. You'd be wise to heed my advice and scatter your forces. Disappear."

Gadon shook his head. "We hold," he answered. "Farewell."

Revan walked away and Carth grumbled under his breath as he rushed to follow, feeling aches in his bones and the ringing in his ears like they were weights around his ankles. The rest of the team trailed after them a few moments later. They gathered at the rear exit to the base, and Revan glanced at them, but his face had relaxed, his eyes were cold and black, and through the grime, blood, and sweat, Carth saw only a soldier again. Not the Sith that had shattered the battle line on the street, but the mercenary.

"We'll get Zaalbar some help," he said, both to Mission and to the wookiee himself. "I promise. Bastila can handle an injury like this, but we need someplace farther from the front. Somehwere the Sith won't reach today."

"They won't make it to Reagano today," Mission offered softly. "I'd put money on that. It's only an hour down the road."

And that's where they went. They were half an hour past the vulkar base, trudging in silence with only their ragged breathing and racing hearts to break the monotony. That was when it happened, a distant thunder that rolled through the steel jungle. Revan stopped in his tracks and looked back, the harsh light gleaming in his obsidian eyes. Mission followed his gaze and her breath caught. Her shaking hand covered her mouth and nose against the terrible scene. In the distance, along that straight mile of metal road, the surface of Taris was collapsing. The Upper City, a kilometer of steel and stone and life, came crashing down behind them in a shower of screaming, howling fire and metal that plummeted down into shadow and dust like it was being pulled there by an invisible hand. The roads connecting to the falling slice of the city bent and warped, snapped and groaned, but even as the world bucked under their feet, Revan stood still as a statue.

The tremendous explosion that roared up from below washed over them in a hot breeze, almost scalding. Then there was a terrible silence, like a void.

"No..." Mission breathed. Carth glanced at her uncomfortably, shuffled his feet. An impotent rage was burning in his chest, like it always did, or maybe it was just the aftereffects of his blaster wound. It didn't matter any more than the valiant efforts of the Hidden Beks had mattered. Nothing, it seemed, mattered against the might of the Sith war machine.

The ragged edges of the void were only two hundred feet away from them. Mission stepped as if to go and look over the edge, but Revan gripped her arm. "Do not," he breathed. "The structures will have been weakened by that fall. We should move on."

So they did, once again listening to the voice of reason, which happened to be speaking through an amnesiac Dark Lord. Carth scowled, rolled his shoulders, and thought of nothing as they marched.


End file.
